
Glass. 



- 



Book 







GILSON WILLETS 



THE TRIUMPH 



YANKEE DOODLE. 










BY 



GILSON WILLETS, 

Author of "Anita, the Cuban Spy." " His Neighbor's Wife." etc.. etc. 




F. TENNYSON NEELY, 

PUBLISHER, 

LONDON. NEW YORK. 



(dOo / o 









W' 



Copyright, 1898, 

by 

F. Teknyson Neely, 

in 

United States 

and 
Great Britain. 

All Rights Reserved. 



TO DEAN, 

COMRADE IN WAR, 

COMPANION IN PEACE 



CONTENTS. 

PAET I. 
Yankee Doodle in Camp. 

CHAPTER I. PAGE 

From Hearthstone to Battlefield 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Camp Life at Chickamauga 21 

CHAPTER III. 
On a Troop Train from Tennessee to Florida 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
With the Troops at Tampa 34 

CHAPTER V. 
A Secret of State 41 

CHAPTER VI. 

Tampa vs. Key West 48 

CHAPTER VII. 

Key West's Sudden Fame 55 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Army Lying on Its Arms 60 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Expedition Sails at Last 68 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. page 

Our First Invading Army 74 

CHAPTER XI. 
With Lee at Jacksonville 81 

CHAPTER XII. 
Camp Cuba Libre 88 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Gospel in the Army 94 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Negro — the Cook — the Horse — the Doctor 103 



PAKT II. 
Yankee Doodle in Cuba and Porto Rico. 

chapter xv. 

The Misery of Our Army Found in Cuba 123 

CHAPTER XVI. 

An Important Bit of History 128 

CHAPTER XVII. 

As We Found Quaint Old Santiago 135 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Porto Rico as the Yankees Found It 143 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Matansas— Second. City of Cuba— Aa We Found It. , , , 151 



CONTENTS. V 

CHAPTER XX. PAQE 

Havana Life in Public 159 

CHAPTER XXL 
Rag-Tag Soldiers in Havana 164 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Seen and Heard in Cuba's Capital „ . . 173 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Sunday in Havana 186 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Belles of Havana 195 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Havana's Last Cigar 200 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Society in Havana 206 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Conclusion 209 



INTRODUCTION. 

In this story of Uncle Sam's conquests I have 
attempted to give a brief outline of the causes of 
the war, the narrative of my own personal ex- 
periences in Cuba, a hint as to the political ad- 
vantages accruing to the Cubans by the conquer- 
ing of the Spaniards by the Americans, a general 
resume of the conditions of Yankee Doodle after 
his triumphs, and the situation in Cuba as the 
peace-army of Americans found it after the war. 

On the 16th of February, the day after the 
murder of the Maine, I started for Havana. My 
experiences in that city during those awful weeks 
of the reign of misery when the reconcentrados 
were dying by thousands, is recounted in later 
chapters. Just before the declaration of war I 
left Havana with General Lee and the corre- 
spondents — the last Americans to come out of 
Cuba before the first shot of the war. The day 
war was declared I started south with the army, 
and continued with it, going from camp to camp, 
living under canvas until the day peace was de- 
clared. All of which is narrated in turn in the 



Viii INTRODUCTION. 

chapters that follow. Meantime I kept a sort of 
journal, in which I wrote, very hastily, scenes 
witnessed and my impressions of the same. 

Under the date of May 25, 1898, at the head- 
quarters of the army at Tampa, I wrote the fol- 
lowing descriptions of the Cuban-American regi- 
ment and its departure for Cuba. 

Eight hundred dark-skinned men gathered in 
front of a sagging, unsafe looking building. 
Only a few weeks before, that building had been 
a cigar factory. Only a few weeks before, most 
of these eight hundred men had worked in that 
factory as cigarmakers. Now the building was 
used as barracks and the cigarmakers had turned 
soldiers. Machetes dangled from their hips, and 
Spanish words bubbled from their lips. They 
were Cuban-Americans, members of the two 
Cuban regiments — recruited in Tampa early in 
May. 

They were only partially equipped, only half- 
fed. Therefore none were whole-hearted. Their 
clothing was half-civilian, half-military. Each 
wore some part of a uniform, but not one had a 
uniform suit complete. Some had straw hats, 
some felt caps, a few were bareheaded. They 
had uniforms without uniformity. As individ- 
uals, as guerrillas, they might have passed mus- 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

ter. As a body of soldiers, however, they were 
a sorry, pitiable, pathetic spectacle. Civilians 
playing soldier — that's what their appearance 
indicated. 

They fell into line. General Nunez, their 
commandante, was coming to inspect them. It 
was a sad, sinister line of men. All were lynx- 
eyed. Some were frightened. A few looked 
weak-kneed, seemed to want to back out. These 
dark faces were all shades of brown : chocolate, 
ginger, cinnamon, walnut. Twenty or thirty 
were black as ebony. These were Cuban negroes, 
the tallest, strongest-looking men in all that 
eight hundred. The Cubans themselves were 
undersized — not one taller than ^five feet eight. 
They were narrow-chested and had very small 
hands and very small feet. But they looked very 
fierce, and they fondled their machetes. 

The commandante arrived. Inspection was 
supposed to follow. It didn't. The command- 
ante dismissed the troops with orders to hold 
themselves in readiness to move. 

Great excitement in the ranks. Spanish oaths 
flew from mouth to mouth. There were protests 
and many head-shakings. 

"Move? Why we are not ready to move. 
Move without clothing or arms? Never!" 

"Sail under an American flag? Never," 



X INTRODUCTION. 

Uncle Sam had indeed agreed to equip these 
Cuban regiments; but as yet uncle had been too 
busy to attend to them. After giving them 
machetes, a few Springfield rifles, and some old 
Smith and Wesson revolvers, Uncle Sam had been 
called off to another job. Now they were told to 
hold themselves in readiness to move. They 
said : "It is not well. " And as for sailing under 
an American flag— no, they would mutiny ; they 
would sail under a Cuban flag or no flag. A 
Cuban always talks too much. 

"Fall in, there," an officer commanded. 
"Attention." 

"Mind your business," said some of the men. 
"We've had enough falling in to-day." 

"To your quarters," the officer ordered 
sternly. 

"We'll do as we please," answered the unruly 
men. 

No wonder Uncle Sam had ordered these 
Cubans to get ready to move. There was no dis- 
cipline in their ranks; no respect for officers; no 
thought of obedience, order or regularity. Why ? 
Because these soldiers were volunteers without 
pay. As long as they were on American soil 
they were not obliged to hold themselves to the 
order of anybody. They were practically civil- 
ians. For until they got to Cuba they could not 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

be enrolled in the Cuban army. Meanwhile, 
they told their officers to go to all sorts of hot 
places. Nine o'clock, taps; still no orders. 
They lay down on the bare floors of the old 
building, which was still redolent of leaf 
tobacco. They had no blankets and no over- 
coats; therefore they had neither bed nor pillow. 
But they slept on their machetes. 

Ten o'clock — what was this? Reveille! Pecu- 
liar time for the buglers to blow reveille. They 
fell out of bed; that is, they sprang from the 
floor. They filtered out through the doors. 
Many jumped out of the windows. They thrust 
their officers aside and formed a line to suit 
themselves. Then they forward-marched with- 
out any attempt at keeping step. They strag- 
gled, both regiments, in a sort of line. Into a 
railroad train they filed. This train took them 
nine miles, through the night, to Port Tampa. 
Here a big steamer awaited them. They went 
aboard, any old way, to suit themselves. No 
wonder Uncle Sam had decided to send these 
Cubans to Cuba. The ship was the Florida. 
Soon after daylight, May 18, the steamer sailed 
away — toward Cuba. Four hundred and twenty 
Cubans were aboard. The remaining three hun- 
dred and eighty were left behind; that is, they 
had straggled in such an independent, go-as-you- 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

please manner that they arrived at the wharf long 
after the Florida had steamed away. 

Before the steamer sailed I asked one of the 
Cubans: "Well, how do you like the prospect of 
fighting?" 

"Oh! well, we have to fight, and that settles 
it. If we had known we would be ordered to 
Cuba so soon we would not have enlisted.' ' 

This was exactly the answer I expected from 
that particular man. For only a few weeks 
before I had met him, as a fellow-passenger, on 
a steamer going from Havana to New York. It 
was a rather bad voyage. Sometimes the ship 
tried to stand on end — a fact which nearly every 
day rendered this Cuban so frightened that he 
threw himself prostrate on the deck, before us 
all, crying: "I have but one wife, I have but 
one wife." When the sea grew calmer he ex- 
plained that he didn't mind drowning himself, 
but he feared for his wife. 

Beside the machete, the Springfield rifle, and 
the revolver, the individual equipment of the 
four hundred and twenty men consisted of a tin 
cup, iron knife and fork, a canteen, a hammock 
and a piece of oilcloth such as is used on tables 
in cheap restaurants. The hammock and the oil- 
cloth were the principal things — for they were 
off on a Cuban campaign. Twenty Cubans will 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

swing hammocks in a place where an American 
would say there was room for only one. They 
stick up a central pole, and from this to the sur- 
rounding uprights suspend twenty or more ham- 
mocks — like ribbons from a maypole. This is 
something our American soldiers will have to 
learn. 

What was the object of this expedition? 
First, to land the four hundred and twenty 
Cubans; second, to land a cargo of supplies and 
ammunition for the insurgent army. On board 
the Florida were ten million rounds of car- 
tridges, ten thousand Springfield rifles, two thou- 
sand dynamite shells for Sims-Huntley dynamite 
guns, and three thousand machetes. There was 
also enough bacon, cornmeal, hard bread and 
quinine to last a good part of the Cuban army 
two or three months. 

But why has no word about that expedition 
been printed. Because the government wanted 
it kept secret. Because the press censor at 
Tampa positively stated that any correspondent 
who allowed his paper to mention the matter 
would be forthwith expelled from Florida' his 
pass would be taken from him, and he would not 
be allowed to go to Cuba with the army. 

The excuse for this secrecy was that the little 
side-wheel steamer, the Gussie, the week before, 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

had tried to land that same cargo on Cuba's 
shore, but had failed. Failed because of the 
publicity given to the expedition by the Ameri- 
can press. The Spanish, being thus informed 
about the movements of the Gussie, were prepared 
to meet her. So when the Florida sailed the 
press censor sent out the edict ordering the 
strictest secrecy. Since then the expedition on 
the Florida has had time to accomplish its object, 
and he who will may tell the Spaniards all about 
it. 

The expedition was really a kind of filibuster- 
ing. In order to land her cargo the Florida was 
obliged to observe all the regular tactics used by 
filibusters before the war began. The Florida 
touched at Key West, where a disagreement 
arose between the two commanders of the ex- 
pedition. For a time it looked as if the Cubans 
would be disbanded and sent home. General 
Sanguilly said he was a major-general and was 
therefore in command. General La Cret said he 
was a brigadier-general but ought to be major- 
general. Finally, they patched the matter up 
and the Florida sailed, intending to land at a 
point in Puerto Principe, midway between 
Matanzas and Santiago. 

The most interesting thing about any body of 
armed Cubans is the machete. The weapon is put 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

to most extraordinary uses. It is indispensable 
while marching through the uuderbrush in Cuba. 
Machete experts march ahead of a column,hewing 
the way. They use the blade so deftly that you 
can hardly perceive a movement on their part. 
The great, thick leaves of cacti and all sorts of 
heavy undergrowth gives way before them as if 
hewn away by an unseen hand. 

In General Blanco's palace in Havana I saw 
fourteen Mauser rifles that had been cut in half 
by an insurgent machete in battle. The idea 
seemed impossible. But there hangs the proof. 
Blanco saves them as curiosities. 

After the Cubans, how about our own troops? 
What was their real condition before starting for 
the fight? In my journal, dated headquarters 
of the army, under canvas, at Tampa, June 16, I 
wrote as follows : 

The plain, unvarnished truth about the bodily 
condition of our army to-day is a commentary 
that should be heeded and cannot be challenged. 
The chiefs of the commissary and quartermaster 
departments can no longer plead the excuse of 
inexperience. For they have now had two 
months' practical experience in equipping troops, 
that is, in attempting to equip them. For the 
forty thousand soldiers now at Tampa are only 
half-clothed, half-equipped and half-fed. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

For the purpose of getting at the exact condi- 
tion of affairs I have lived with our soldiers 
under canvas, slept and ate with them, chummed 
with them. And I am bound to say, without one 
intentioned thought of disloyalty to the powers 
that be, that thousands of our soldiers are 
hungry, that they are improperly clothed, that 
the water supply is inefficient, and that under 
the present conditions hundreds of soldiers, 
instead of going forward to Cuba or Porto Eico, 
will go back to the army hospital at Chicka- 
mauga. Even now they are loading the hospital 
train with sick soldiers whose sickness is the 
result of needless exposure in a hot climate and 
of insufficient or improper food. 

The first expedition to Cuba has sailed. But 
it was not ready. Not a single soldier should 
have been sent to Cuba till he was supplied with 
a thin uniform, a hammock, and a rubber blanket. 
Yet, with the exception of a few enterprising 
officers who bought these necessaries in Tampa, 
not one soldier in Shafter's army carried the 
equipments necessary for a tropical campaign. 
The Seventy-first New York and the Second 
Massachusetts not only wore the same uniforms 
they would wear in a Canadian campaign, for 
instance, in winter, but some one made the 
grave mistake of allowing them to carry over- 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

coats — overcoats weighing ten pounds each. 
While they were in camp here these two regi- 
ments never had sufficient food or an adequate 
water supply. The officers, while at Lakeland, 
boarded at the nearest farmhouses — any place 
where they could find food properly cooked. 
And I am bound to say that some of their dis- 
comforts were the result of their own ignorance 
and inexperience — a statement which applies to 
all the volunteer regiments at Tampa. 

The quartermasters and commissaries of volun- 
teers have not yet learned how or where to draw 
clothing and rations. AVith whole train loads of 
supplies standing within sight on car tracks, the 
supply officers have allowed their regiments to 
go hungrj' and ill-clothed rather than run the 
risk of breaking one red-tape rule. 

These same officers knew that fresh meat was 
to be had, but they knew not how to make the 
necessary red-tape requisition to get it. Even 
when they did learn the ropes, as it were, they 
failed to make the best use of their knowledge. 
The chief commissary of Shafter's staff said to 
me: "All commissaries of regiments must hand 
me their requisitions for fresh meat before four 
o'clock each day. Thus I informed them. In- 
stead of strict obedience the volunteer commis- 
saries would stroll up to my tent long after four 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

o'clock and long after all requisitions bad gone 
in. When I said * too late,' the volunteers said 
they did not understand that I meant four o'clock 
exactly. Meanwhile, their men are eating salt 

pork." 

Even when the volunteer officers have learned 
to draw rations there is often not a man in the 
regiment who knows how to cook. As a result, 
the men have often been sick by good food badly 
cooked. At one time the food famine reached 
such an alarming state that for days volunteer 
soldiers slouched about the streets of Tampa, 
going from door to door begging for food. 
When a soldier begs, he certainly must be 
hungry. No one refused them. And many citi- 
zens of Tampa will testify to feeding many volun- 
teer soldiers every day. 

As a matter of fact, the regular army rations 
are amply sufficient for even the hungriest of 
men ; the amount is even more than many men 
need or care for. For this reason there is a 
privilege given to soldiers to save what they can 
for regular rations and exchange the saving for 
luxuries, such as condensed milk, fresh vege- 
tables and fresh fruit and beer. The Seventy- 
first New York tried the saving process with the 
result that the men received less and less food 
and no luxuries at all. In the first place the 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

cooks of volunteer regiments seldom cook enough 
to go around. Nine or ten men in each com- 
pany,for this reason, often went to bed supperless 
Then when it came to saving out coffee in order 
to exchange it for condensed milk, the cooks 
saved so much that the coffee was not coffee at 
all, but simply colored water. 

In visiting the various camps I found tho 
Georgia regiment wearing the Confederate gray 
— no attempt having been made to supply the 
men with proper uniforms. The Michigan regi- 
ment was without food — that is, to a large ex- 
tent. Payday came, but no pay, and the condi- 
tions were worse than ever; for the men had no 
money with which to buy absolute necessities. 
As soon as the paymaster did appear, the shoe 
stores of Tampa sold out their stocks of shoes. 

In the quartermaster's departments the ineffi- 
ciency is even worse than in the commissary. 
The volunteer troops are detrained at Tampa 
like so many head of cattle— excepting that cat- 
tle would have some sort of owner or keeper or 
guide to lead them to their grazing grounds. 
The volunteer troops, however, must stand in the 
sun or the rain for hours, till some one hunts up 
a camping ground. Every regiment is supposed 
to have thirty wagons and one hundred and 
twenty mules to transport supplies from trains 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

to camp. But many of the regiments at Tampa 
have only three wagons and only nine mules. 
Men who could sleep under tents at night, often 
are obliged to sleep on the wet ground till their 
three wagons can do the work of thirty, and 
bring up their supplies. 

In the matter of water, the facts have not been 
exaggerated. Many of the boys at Tampa actu- 
ally have to go one or two miles for water — for 
which water the government pays the Plant Sys- 
tem two cents a gallon. When the water is 
really near the camps it is served out by the 
Plant System from barrels (at two cents a gallon), 
and when the barrels run dry, why, the boys 
must go thirsty or drink Plant System beer at 
five cents a glass. 

If this is a war for humanity's sake, the 
government's first act of humanity should be 
toward the men who do the fighting. How can 
we expect men who are half-clothed, half-fed, and 
half-equipped to make good fighters? Men who 
are so poorly supplied with food or whose food 
is so poorly cooked that they have to buy pies 
and sweet cakes and acid water called lemonade 
from passing venders to satisfy their appetites, 
do not make good soldiers. 

Our soldiers in Tampa live under the broiling 
sun, sweltering, with the thermometer at 100 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

degrees. Here they are exposed to needless hard- 
ships in the enervating climate of Florida, when 
they should have been broken in to field duties 
in the cool, bracing north. Here they are with- 
out uniforms suitable to hot weather. Here they 
are eating bacon when they should be eating 
fresh fruits and vegetables. They sweat and 
sweat, night and day, in cowhide boots, winter 
trousers, thick flannel shirts and heavy felt 
hats, when they ought to have straw hats, cotton 
trousers and flimsy shirts. And sweating, they 
sleep in sand, dirty sand, that clings to their 
clothing and gets in their food. Dysentery has 
overtaken all the camps and the doctors are busy. 
Certainly our soldiers are neglected— a neglect 
that is almost cruelty. Who is responsible? 



APPENDIX. 



Most of the stories, letters and sketches in this 
volume appeared originally, during and right 
after the war, in the following publications: 

"Leslie's Weekly," "Collier's Weekly," Mc- 
Clure's Syndicate of Newspapers, ''The Metro- 
politan Magazine." "The Home Journal" "The 
Christian Herald," "Ev'ry Month," and the 
newspapers of the American Press Association. 

To the courtesy and kindness of the editors 
and publishers of the above publications, the 
author and publisher of this work is indebted 
for permission to reprint the material here under 
the general title: "The Triumph of Yankee 
Doodle." 

GlLSON WlLLETS. 



YANKEE DOODLE 

IN 

CAMP. 



THE TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



PAET I. 

Yankee Doodle in Camp. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM HEARTHSTONE TO BATTLEFIELD. 

A child was playing among the monuments on 
Snodgrass Hill in Chickamauga National Park. 
The monuments were all covered with words cut 
in the marble to perpetuate the story of a terri- 
ble battle which had been fought there more than 
thirty years before the child was born. She ran 
her fingers in the depressions made by the let- 
ters W-a-r. She was pink and fresh. Night 
was near. She was Dawn playing in the twilight. 

An old man with a sickle hacked at the grass 
around the base of the monuments. He worked 
with one eye. His other eye was on the child. 
Finally with both eyes he looked abroad. At 
the base of the hill he noticed that some of the 
top rails had fallen from the fence. A park- 



10 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

keeper's first duty it to keep the fences up- 
This old man descended the hill in the perform- 
ance of such a duty. He passed a small pond. 
A huge signboard told that this was "Bloody 
Pond;" that during the battle of Chickamauga 
wounded soldiers dragged themselves there to 
drink. While drinking, scores of them fell in 
and the water turned to blood. On the other 
side of this pond was the railroad track. While 
the old man restored the fallen rails to the fence- 
top there was a sudden shrieking in the distance. 
A train was giving notice of its approach. The 
old man rejoined the child among the monuments 
on the top of the hill. It was now nearly dark. 
Still there was light enough for the child to run 
its finger in the grooves made in the marble by 
the letters D-e-a-t-h. Great fun. The child 
laughed. Night came and hid the words War 
and Death. 

Old man and child started homeward. Home 
was one of the log cabins at Park Headquarters 
where the workmen lived. As they passed the 
battlefield railroad station the train which had 
shrieked notice of its approach bellowed up. 
This train was in three sections, thirty-five cars 
in all. With the engine at the station, the last 
car was half a mile out in the night. 

Out of these cars came a thousand men — most 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 11 

of them jumped from the windows. There were 
bugle calls, a lively tooting, business-like airs. 
The thousand men formed in a battle-line up and 
down the track. In front of each hundred men 
a man with a lantern on his arm called the roll. 
From the ranks adown the line came the answer 
"Here." After that they counted fours. Then, 
forming a column, they marched away from the 
train, skirted Eloody Pond, ascended Snodgrass 
Hill, and, among the monuments, broke ranks. 
As it was too late to pitch tents, the thousand 
bivouacked; that is, they built fires, appointed 
sentries, went to bed supperless under the stars, 
with the earth for a mattress. A bugler played 
a slow, plaintive air. Taps. The thousand went 
to sleep. 

The old man and the child had been watching. 

"Gran'pa, what's dose mans doin'?" the 
child asked. 

"War," the old man said. 

"What's war, gran'pa?" 

And the old man answered, "Death." 

This beginning of war and death took place 
on the night of April 20th just past. The thou- 
sand men who jumped from the train and 
bivouacked on Snodgrass Hill composed the 
Twenty-fifth Infantry, from Fort Assiniboine, on 
the northern border of Montana. They had been 



12 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

nine days on the train, sleeping on car seats, liv- 
ing on two meals a day — canned beans and 
canned corned beef and coffee. They were worn 
out, still they were happy, for in the Spanish- 
American war they were the first in the field. 
Thus began the mobilization of the United States 
Army. Thus among the monuments was formed 
the nucleus of Camp Thomas, named in remem- 
brance of the general who, thirty-five years 
before, had led the boys in blue over that same 
Snodgrass Hill to victory on the field of Chicka- 
mauga. 

The next morning the old man and the child 
appeared at the foot of Snodgrass Hill. The 
fence rails which the old man had so carefully 
adjusted the night before had disappeared. So 
had the entire fence. It had made fine camp- 
fires for the Twenty-fifth. Then, too, the grass 
about the monuments was trampled into the 
earth. The old man looked at the soldiers re- 
proachfully. The soldiers ignored the old man. 
But they saw the child. 

"Come here, little 'un." 

"No; come here." 

"What's your name, kid?" 

"Shut up; it's a girl." 

The child toddled from soldier to soldier. A 
corporal gave her a drink of coffee out of a can- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 13 

teen. A sergeant had a doughnut which he had 
bought on the train. It was his breakfast. He 
thrust it into the child's dimpled hand. A 
bugler put the child on his shoulder, carried her 
down to Bloody Pond, and gave her a drink out 
of his tin cup. The cup was mirrory. In this 
shiny thing the child made faces and laughed 
gleefully. "When the soldier tried to take the 
cup from her she began to cry. He told her the 
cup was hers to keep. She brightened. The 
soldier smiled grimly. Now, when thirsty, he 
would have to borrow a comrade's cup. 

Later, when thej r broke bivouac on Snodgrass 
Hill and marched toward their permanent camp 
in another part of the field, they took the child 
with them, carrying her on the Ked Cross 
stretcher. They promised the old man they 
would bring the little 'un home at night. Thus 
the child attached herself to the Twenty-fifth. 

Two weeks later eighteen regiments were en- 
camped at Chickamauga. Every day had brought 
trainloads of soldiers. Twelve thousand of them 
were now in the field. Here now were thousands 
of horses and mules, hundreds of supply wagons 
and ambulances, mountains of hay — infantry, 
cavalry, and artillery. In the midst of this mili- 
tary wonderland roamed the child. Her eyes 
remained wide open in perpetual amazement. 



H TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

She sucked her thumb a great deal. Every man 
of the twelve thousand knew her. "When she 
toddled over to the cavalrymen the infantrymen 
were jealous. The artillerymen tried to secure 
her especial favor by allowing her to sit on one 
of the big guns with wheels. 

This child already had the instincts of a 
woman. She never allowed her artilleryman to 
kiss her until her cavalryman had turned his 
back. 

So she wandered around the city of canvas 
houses, a city in which no woman lived and in 
which she was the only child. At reveille some 
of the citizens came over to the log cabin at Park 
Headquarters and took her from the old man. 
Before retreat they brought her back. The old 
man now spent his days sitting in his doorstep, 
smoking his pipe. There was no grass to mow; 
for the soldiers had reduced the grass to brown 
earth, from which arose clouds of dust. 

The child liked riding horseback. The mail 
carriers of the cavalry regiments stuffed the mail 
in a nose bag and carried the child in the post 
bag. The buglers permitted her to blow in their 
bugles till she nearly burst her cheeks. Soldier- 
blacksmiths on the field showed her how to shoe 
a horse. 

One evening she found herself in the Twelfth 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 15 

Infantry camp, three miles from the old man on 
the log cabin doorstep. Instead of sending her 
the three miles on the back of one man, she was 
transported via the backs of some fifty-odd sen- 
tries, each sentry carrying her down the line and 
turning her over to the sentry on the next post. 
She ate her breakfast with the men — bacon and 
fried potatoes and coffee. And her dinner — 
beans and stewed tomatoes and coffee. And her 
supper — bacon and fried potatoes and coffee. 
When she sat on the damp ground the soldiers 
would scold and make her a throne-chair of 
straw. Once the commissary-sergeant carried 
her to the top of the mountain of hay where she 
could see over the whole camp. Amid the thou- 
sands of tents she saw thousands of men. Hun- 
dreds of them were doing the same thing at the 
same time. Troopers were taking their horses 
to the Chickamauga Creek for water. An artil- 
lery regiment was striking camp, having been 
ordered to Tampa. Thirty minutes after the 
order was received the artillerymen's tents were 
down and they were marching toward the rail- 
road. In an infantry camp there was an unex- 
pected call to arms — just for practice. Three 
minutes later the men of that regiment, having 
instantly dropped their individual tasks, stood 
forth in line of battle, armed and ready to re- 
pulse an enemy. 



16 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

On the way down the hay mountain the 
trooper's spur caught in something and he fell 
headlong — not far. The child cried as if her 
heart would break. Then, perceiving that the 
trooper was not hurt, she said, "Man nice manl" 
And she kissed him right in the sight of a hun- 
dred other troopers, who thereupon perceived 
that the way to win a woman is to go get hurt 
and arouse her pity. 

One day at drill an infantrymen happened to 
drop his pistol. It went off and lodged a ball in 
a comrade's leg. The wounded one was carried 
to the Ked Cross tent. The child followed, 
grasping the stretcher with her little hands in a 
mighty effort to help the carriers. Of all the 
twelve thousand men in camp at Chickamauga, 
this wounded soldier was the only one on the 
sick-list. Everyday to the hospital came the 
child. She would sit on a soap box by the 
wounded man's side, sometimes for hours, mov- 
ing not a muscle, just gazing at her comrade in 
profound pity. Once she kissed him, having 
climbed up on the cot to do so. Then she ran 
away as if abashed. 

At last, after days of regimental, brigade, and 
division drill, the troops began maneuvering as 
an army— as one body. From a hill in the cen- 
tre Major-General John Brooke, commanding, 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 17 

directed the maneuvers. A sham battle began. 
A picket line was thrown around the entire 
camp, thus guarding the three square miles 
within which the troops were massed. Skirmish 
lines advanced, fell flat on their stomachs, fired 
at an unseen enemy, then arose, advanced and 
again fell to the ground. The light batteries 
boomed and boomed, and regiments of infantry 
stood ready to back them up. Whole regiments 
of cavalry, ready with carbines, sabers, and 
pistols, charged imaginary foes. There was fir- 
ing, but no blood-shedding. There was fighting 
without carnage, all the tricks and strategies of 
battle without conflict, an engagement without a 
foe, a game of solitaire on a gigantic scale. 

In this smoke-enshrouded field, amid the vol- 
leys, the rattle of rifles, the booming of the bat- 
teries, the tooting of bugles, the shouts of the 
officers and the yells of the men, a child toddled, 
chewing her thumb. As she emerged from the 
woods and advanced across the open toward the 
masses of cavalry, the troopers heard the order, 
"Charge!" 

Instantly four thousand troopers tightened rein 
and four thousand horses rushed forward. Then 
they saw the child coming toward them across 
the open. Good God! four thousand cavalrymen 
were charging full speed upon a child! 



18 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Those in front tried to stop. They could not. 
The troopers behind, not understanding, urged 
them forward. In a moment the hoofs of four 
thousand horses would trample out that little life. 

Those in front cursed the ranks rushing upon 
them from behind. Was there no way to avert 
this dreadful murder? 

Yes. Out of the front rank a trooper suddenly 
shot forward, dashed on, reached the child, 
caught her up, and, holding her in his arms, 
again dashed on just in time to avoid the shock 
of collision with the onrushing troopers. 

Heroic trooper! Who was he? General 
Brooke wanted to know. From his station on 
the hill he had seen all. The maneuvering over, 
he sent for that gallant trooper and for the child. 

The trooper belonged to the Tenth Cavalry, a 
colored regiment. This hero was as black as 
licorice. He and his comrades of the Tenth are 
all daredevils and daring riders. 

General Brooke praised him ; the trooper dis- 
played two rows of wonderful white teeth and 
retired. 

Then the dignified general, the disciplinarian, 
the commanding officer of the Army of Invasion, 
took the child in his arms. 

"What is your name?" 

"Missoura," answered the little one. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 19 

(I have forgotten to mention that Missoura's 
"gran'pa" is the color of Uncle Tom.) 

"Well, Missoura," General Brooke said, 
"you're the finest pickanniny in all Georgia." 

But Chickamauga is only one of the many 
camps scattered throughout the Union which 
have all in a moment been converted from peace- 
ful parks into hives of bustling, warlike human- 
ity. Every State in the Union has its camp 
where the National Guard twice a year receive 
their instructions in the rudiments of soldiering. 
It is a big task this of fitting one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand peaceful citizens, accus- 
tomed to all the comforts of home and city, for 
the rough, hard life of campaigning in an 
enemy's country. 

New York, as the most populous State in the 
Union, furnishes the largest quota, fifteen thou- 
sand men, for whose accommodation it has been 
found necessary to have two camps — the regular 
State camp at Peekskill, and another improvised 
one at Hempstead, L. I. Each contains about 
the same number of men. 

To a stranger from one of the great military 
countries, like Germany or France, it might 
seem an impossible task to create in a few weeks 
from practically untrained material an army of 
one hundred and twenty-five thousand men. 



20 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

From the very beginning, even at single camps 
like Peekskill or Hempstead, the work is hard, 
for both haste and thoroughness are essential. 
First of all, the camp itself has to be prepared, 
the spaces allotted to the different companies, the 
streets mapped out, water pipes laid, and a hun- 
dred and one little details, apparently slight but 
really of great importance, considered. Then 
down come the men by train or ferryboat, each 
loaded with his cooking can, his blanket, his 
arms and ammunition, and a few simple neces- 
saries. But the real work is the training. This 
is only accomplished by assiduous drilling, 
maneuvering, and instruction. The aspirant to 
military honors has no sinecure. His work 
begins at 5 :30 a. m. with the reveille, and ends 
at 10 p. m. with taps, and in that period he has 
little leisure; it is a succession of marchings and 
counter-marchings, wheelings right and left, 
standings, often at attention and less often at 
ease; and the end and object of all is to learn to 
obey promptly and readily one directing will in 
battle. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

CAMP LIFE AT CHICKAMAUGA. 

I ilwe asked as many as two hundred men in 
the different camps how they like the prospects 
of fighting. 

Answer: " We have no dread of Spanish bul- 
lets, but we do dread the fever." 

Answer: "We swore to serve our country. 
We will keep our oath." 

Answer: "We might as well die now as later." 

Answer: "None of us think of the danger. 
Each of us thinks he will be the one to escape 
the bullets." 

Answer: "All we ask is a chance to fight. We 
want this thing over with as soon as possible; 
we prefer battle to suspense." 

The Seventh Infantry have what might be 
called a regimental answer. Officers have it 
printed on their letter-heads; the enlisted men 
have it stencilled on their tents. It reads: 
"Ready at a minute's notice." 

"We are going to fight for our country, 
humanity and revenge, Remember the Maine.'* 



22 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

These words, written on a card in a hand in- 
dicating intelligence, were thrown from a troop- 
train as it passed through Chattanooga. That 
card is now posted in a conspicuous place in 
Chattanooga's leading hotel. The words have 
become famous, for they express the sentiment 
of the rank and file of the United States army in 
the Spanish-American war. The train from 
which this card was thrown was carrying the 
Ninth Cavalry (colored) to Chickamauga Park, 
thirteen miles from Chattanooga. 

Northerners think this place of mobilization is 
in Tennessee. Not so. It is in Georgia. North- 
erners also have the impression that the troops 
are massed all together in the center of the park. 
Again, not so. There are eighteen camps spread 
over twelve square miles, some of the regiments 
being miles apart. The whole has been chris- 
tened Camp George H. Thomas, in honor of the 
general whose command won victory for the 
Union troops in the battle of Chickamauga in 
September, 1863. 

The battlefield is twelve miles square. On 
the hills, scores of white monuments. On the 
plains, thousands of white tents. The monu- 
ments tell of a battle fought on these hills in a 
war thirty-five years ago. The tents give notice 
of the Spanish-American war of the present. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 23 

Twelve thousand men flitting here and there, 
singly or in bunches of a hundred or a thousand. 
Four thousand horses eating hay adown forty 
picket lines. Fifteen hundred mules tied to the 
wheels of hundreds of supply wagons and ambu- 
lances, a mule to each wheel. At night a thou- 
sand campfires and five hundred sentries with 
bayonets a-shoulder. In the center of all on a 
hill, four big tents — headquarters of Major- 
General John Brooke, commanding the army of 
invasion, and his staff. This is Camp George H. 
Thomas, in Chickamauga Park. It is not unlike 
the other military camps at Mobile, New Orleans, 
or Tampa, the centers of mobilization, save that 
the latter encampments are composed only of in- 
fantry, while at Chickamauga we have all the 
branches of the service — artillery, cavalry, and 
infantry. Thrown in, we have also a signal 
corps, an engineer corps, a balloon corps, a pho- 
tograph corps, and the heads of all departments, 
such as commissary, quartermaster, physicians 
and surgeons, the Ked Cross, and more than our 
share of colored troops and stragglers. 

The only chaplain in the field is the Rev. Bate- 
man, of the Twenty-fifth Infantry. He has 
called upon the pastors of Chattanooga, thirteen 
miles away, to come and help him on Sundays. 
Now every Lord's day at three o'clock are held 
services, attended by thousands of soldiers. 



24 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

All the spare room in the farmhouses round 
about is occupied by the wives of officers and by 
newspaper correspondents. Table board is at a 
premium. Visitors pour into the field by the 
thousand. They rush by the sentries, and peek 
into the officers' tents, as people do at a park 
menagerie. The visitors are an annoyance to the 
troops. They are always in the way, and to the 
soldiers falls the task of "policing" the camp, 
picking up the multifarious refuse of multitudin- 
ous lunch-baskets left by visitors. 

A trooper thinks first of his mount, and second 
of his stomach. In the field, therefore, cooks 
are very important, and very much-abused per- 
sons. If the dinner is late, if green wood won't 
burn, if the coffee is scorched, the cook is 
blamed. The men help the poor cook out by 
stealing, or, rather, by foraging. They confis- 
cate stray pigs, corral any cow in sight, plunder 
henroosts, and carry off soft-drink stands 
bodily. The guilty ones are never discovered, 
and the guardhouses remain empty. 

The mobilization of troops is really the act of 
making many mobs into one huge mob. Instead 
of the chaos of a mob, however, here are system 
and discipline, leaders and followers. But what 
havoc even an orderly mob makes in a landscape! 
When the troops first arrived here, Chickamauga 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 25 

was a place of green fields. Now the fields are 
all brown earth, and dust flies in clouds. Woods 
have been reduced to fields of stumps, for fire- 
wood must be had at any sacrifice. With ten 
kitchens to each of the eighteen regiments, and 
scores of campfires for each regiment every 
night, no wonder fences and woods are disap- 
peariDg! 

Wherever troops are in the field, whether here 
at Chickamauga, or further south at Tampa, 
Mobile, or New Orleans, the soldier's life is the 
same. Rain or shine, reveille calls him at 5 :20 
a. m. From then until tattoo at 9 p. m. he 
drills in the broiling sun or works knee-deep in 
mud in the pouring rain. He sleeps on straw 
in his tent, and takes his clothes off only when 
he bathes in a nearby stream. He lives in a city 
of three thousand or four thousand canvas houses. 
He sees this city lighted at night by a thousand 
campfires and policed by a thousand sentries. 
He is happy, for he is healthful. At Chicka- 
mauga the only man in a Red Cross tent is one 
who was accidentally wounded in the leg by a 
comrade who dropped a pistol while at drill. 
These vacant hospitals are significant; for they 
show that the men can stand sudden changes of 
climate. All the regiments at Chickamauga 
came from the coldest States of the Northwest. 



26 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

These regiments in particular are held at Chicka- 
mauga, in order that they may become accus- 
tomed to the heat before the command is given: 
"On to Cuba!" 

Soldiers in the field have a way of spreading 
themselves over a vast tract of territory. The 
twelve thousand at Chickamauga camp are in 
evidence along the whole thirteen-mile stretch 
between the battlefield in Georgia and Chatta- 
nooga in Tennessee. Even in the city the men 
are peaceful and orderly, except the colored 
troops. Of these there are four regiments here, 
two of infantry and two of cavalry. As only a 
few of them have been in the South before, they 
have exaggerated ideas of how Southerners treat 
negroes. They imagine they are hated, and they 
resent this hatred by making things uncomfort- 
able for helpless whites. Up to their old tricks 
of stealing chickens and pigs, some of them have 
been mortally wounded by outraged farmers. 
One night a howling band of colored troopers at 
the points of pistols took forcible possession of 
the Black Maria in Chattanooga, because the 
police were arresting a wench. Since then, Gen- 
eral Brooke has issued an order that side arms 
must not be worn by men "on pass." 

In the ranks of the black troopers, however, 
are some of the finest specimens of physical man- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 27 

hood. They ride their horses as if born in the 
saddle. 

The only colored officer in the army is 
here: Lieutenant Young, of the Ninth Cavalry. 
Visitors made up principally of the colored popu- 
lation of Chattanooga have become so numerous 
in the park that General Brooke has been obliged 
to put the camp on a war footing. Rope fences 
have been put around all the regimental camps, 
and now one cannot get inside the lines without 
a passport. 

The mascots in the Chickamauga mmy are not 
always dogs. The Sixteenth Infantry has an 
eagle, the Twelfth Infantry a coyote, the Ninth 
Cavalry a monkey, the Fifth Artillery a parrot, 
and the Seventh Infantry, a little homeless wan- 
derer, a boy of twelve years. 

The colored troopers have a glee club, and 
every regiment has its bicycle squad, used as 
orderlies, messengers, and letter-carriers. Mail 
is distributed with the same system that char- 
acterizes everything else in the field. The 
buglers blow mail call four times a day. The 
mail carrier from each regiment, bag a-shoulder, 
goes to the post office and brings the mail to the 
first sergeant of each company, who, in turn, 
distributes it to the men. The post office at 
Battlefield Station, which formerly sold four 



28 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

stamps a day, now sells eight thousand in the 
same time. Tor every man in our army can read 
and write. The sale of postage stamps shows 
that about two-thirds of the men write a letter 
every day. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 29 



CHAPTER III. 

ON A TROOP TRAIN FROM TENNESSEE TO FLORIDA. 

Forty-five cars in all. Train divided into 
three sections. Each section in sight of the 
other, like city cable cars in the rush hours of 
the evening. A thousand troopers in day 
coaches. A hundred officers in sleepers. Eleven 
hundred horses in stock cars. Every car window 
frames a face. Eed, white and blue bunting 
hiding the numbers of the coaches. Stars and 
Stripes waving from the platforms. Troopers 
seated on the coal on the tender. Troopers on 
top of the coaches. Troopers hungry and dirty 
and going to war armed to the teeth. 

Chickamauga is seventy miles behind. We 
reach Atlanta, enter the station hooting, screech- 
ing, cat-calling. Corned-beef and beans travel 
from cans to ravenous mouths. Caldrons of 
scalding coffee come out of the station restau- 
rant. The troopers eat. The soldiers have 
twentj'-one cents each to spend for coffee per 
day. Some of them spend it all at once. Never 



30 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

mind. The coffee was good. Nearly the entire 
population of Atlanta crushes into the station 
and around the train. They cheer the boys in 
blue, who laugh and nod and shout. 

General O. O. Howard, one-armed Union 
veteran, boards our train. So does General Joe 
Wheeler, undersized Confederate veteran. The 
two generals stand on the rear platform arm in 
arm; and the populace of Atlanta cheers itself 
hoarse. General Wheeler is on the way to lead 
the cavalry in Cuba. General Howard is com- 
ing to show the boys the ways of a Christian. 
He represents the Y.M.C.A. 

The trains rush on. Jacksonville next stop. 
We thunder over the road, away from the red 
clay of Georgia to the white sand of Florida. 
It's an all-night run. The men must coil upon 
the car seats and sleep the best they can. In 
the sleepers porters have put our two generals 
and our officers to sleep in comfortable beds. 

A drummer boy is ill. The rocking of the 
train, its careening as it rushes round the curves, 
make him, practically, seasick. Earnest solici- 
tude on part of men. And sympathy and atten- 
tion. "Here, boy, take this. 'Twill do yer 
good." And whisky is poured into his mouth. 
It's all they have, in the way of medicine, these 
men on the way to war. And the doctors are 
asleep in the forward Pullman. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 31 

Jacksonville — just at sunrise. Jacksonville is 
out of bed. Fifteen thousand people greet us at 
the station. We jump off, pace the platforms, 
just to stretch aching limbs. 

Again on, to Tampa — an all-day's run. 

The sun — phew! it's hot. Some of the men 
on the sunny side of the car envy the men on the 
shady side. Still, many of those on the shady 
side offer their seats to those in the sun. They 
are willing to take turns — in the sun. They do. 
No sitting atop the cars now. The sun is broil- 
ing. We are in the land of tall palms and of 
white sand. The soldiers sing "Suannee River." 
Fine voices. The band get out their pieces and 
play "Old Black Joe. " Anything to pass the 
time — on the way to war. 

Do they think of war? of Cuba? of battle? of 
death? Some of them seem quiet. I saw tears 
— yes, surely those were tears dropping down the 
cheeks of a swarthy trooper. Perhaps he was 
affected by the singing. "Suannee Eiver" is a 
melody sad and weary. Or perhaps he is think- 
ing of Molly, his wife, or of Kitty, his little 
baby-girl. On, on to war — some jolly, some sad. 
Some make brave attempts at cheerfulness. 
These are the intelligent men, or rather the 
more intelligent, more refined. See these 
lads, really boys, sons of officers; accustomed to 



32 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

refinement, luxury, gentleness. The troopers, 
some of them, curse and swear — on the way to 
war. Somehow the swearing and cursing is a 
shock to the refined ones. Still, rations and 
coffee and Tampa are near. 

Tampa? No — we do not get off at Tampa. 
On to Port Tampa, nine miles distant. All local 
trains make way for us. From the car window 
we see miles of tents, the biggest concentration 
of troops since the Civil War. 

At Port Tampa, near the Inn, we disembark, 
go into camp. The poor horses, how they have 
suffered on the thirty-six hours' journey! They 
have had neither water nor hay. The members 
of the First rush to their mounts. A kindly pat, 
a friendly dig in the ribs. Horses neigh and 
are led off to the picket lines. 

Here is more evidence of war than at any point 
in all the vast area of these United States. 
Tents around the edge of the bay; camps for 
miles, as far as you can see. Supply wagons 
forming trains miles long. And hospital and 
Red Cross wagons. And mules and horses. Our 
regiment needs milk — or rather, we want to 
treat ourselves to milk. We buy a cow of a 
neighboring colored farmer. The quartermaster- 
sergeant and the corporal of the guard begin 
milking it. No milk. Ah, the farmer had 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 33 

delivered the cow at 5 p. m. accordiDg to agree- 
ment. But he forgot to mention that he had 
milked that cow at 4:45 p. m. 

We camp on the edge of the bay in sight of a 
fleet of steamers. Never so large a fleet has been 
anchored in Tampa "Bay. Forty big steamers — 
transports. Hundreds of soldiers are loading 
them with ammunition, supplies, medicines, 
equipments. For we are on the way to war. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WITH THE TROOPS AT TAMPA. 

From the bridge of the flagship Olivette I look 
down a double line of transports a mile long. 
With a good glass I can just distinguish the 
white W. on the black funnel of the Ward Line 
steamer Yigilanca at the other end of the line. 
The twenty -two intervening steamers form a 
gnarled, chaotic line of masts, funnels, ropes, 
halyards and flags. 

Everyone of these twenty-four vessels is 
loaded right up to the hatches — two with pon- 
toon bridges; two with bacon and beans and 
potatoes; many with rifles and bullets and dyna- 
mite; and all with coal enough to last thirty 
days. Every port in each of these low-lying 
steamers is guarded by a soldier of the United 
States. Alighted cigar below decks might make 
things unpleasant. Some of the vessels are so 
heavily laden that their ports are below the 
waterline : — closed, of course. Here are more 
ships than a Tampaite would have seen in his 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 35 

whole lifetime if we Lad not gone to war with 
Spain. Some of these ships are painted lead- 
color, like the gunboats in the harbor. The 
color, however, is left to the choice of the vari- 
ous shipowners. Most of them have stuck to 
black. 

Here the ships have lain for three weeks, 
ocean-going army wagons waiting to carry troops 
to Cuba. As the government pays an average of 
one thousand dollars a day for each vessel, or 
twenty-four thousand dollars a day for all, this 
single fleet has already cost Uncle Sam nearly 
three hundred thousand dollars. If invasion is 
put off till fall, the delaj r will have cost one mill- 
ion five hundred thousand dollars for this one 
item — a fine thing for the steamship companies. 

It is needless to say that the owners of these 
steamers have at last found a definition of per- 
fect bliss. It is: Get the government to pay you 
a thousand dollars a day for the use of your ship, 
while your ship lies at a wharf, costing you less 
than five hundred a day. 

The crew of the Seneca struck recently. So 
many sailors and stewards had been discharged 
that those who remained were obliged to work 
eighteen hours a day. So they refused to work 
at all. To reduce them to submission the ship's 
officers deprived the men of food. The crew 



36 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

starved — rather than do the work of twice their 
number. Then Uncle Sam stepped in. Why 
was not a certain work accomplished? Where- 
upon the ship took back the discharged men, and 
thus the strike ended in victory for the crew. 

Later, a mutiny of another sort occurred on 
one of the Mallory liners. Learning that their 
ship might be fired upon by the Spaniards when 
nearing Cuba, the crew decided that they did not 
wish to go Cubaward. They swore they 
would not go — threatened to leave the ship. 
But now the leaders of that recalcitrant crew are 
in irons. They have been told that they must go 
to Cuba or to the nearest prison. For they long 
ago signed papers agreeing to man the ship and 
go with it to any port, according to the wish of 
the United States. 

There was never a busier time on the railroads 
of Florida than when the munitions of war were 
crossing the State on their way to Port Tampa. 
For more than two weeks there were as many as 
fifty miles of freight cars blocking the tracks 
between Jacksonville and Tampa. Hence came 
lumber for building stalls and bunks — the first 
for the horses and mules, the last for the soldiers. 
Then came whole train-loads of leaden death — 
cartridges, dynamite shells, torpedoes, and all 
sorts of ammunition for the Hotchkiss guns, the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 37 

Gatlings, and the Siins-Huntley dynamite guns 
Then came hay, straw, and oats — fodder for 
animals and food for men. Out of the cars and 
into the ships flowed the tons and tons of war's 
necessities. Even now, though the ships are 
supposed to be ready to sail, there is still loading 
— and unloading. Several times it has happened 
that a vessel's entire cargo has been lifted out, 
and transferred to a newly-arrived transport. 
This is the result of mistakes on the part of the 
depot quartermasters, or else it is done to keep 
the soldiers too busy to think. 

The lower decks of the transports are com- 
pletely scaffolded with bunks and stalls. The 
stalls are just wide enough to admit a horse, so 
that, no matter how long the voyage may last, 
the poor animals cannot lie down. As for the 
bunks — rough wood affairs— each holds two men. 
Here must the men sleep, ill or well, miserable or 
happy, till the end of the voyage. It is pro- 
posed to put fully a thousand men on each trans- 
port, and in some cases fifteen hundred. As the 
vessels can accommodate only five hundred com- 
fortably, this overcrowding means trouble and 
the foundation of sickness. It is practically 
jeopardizing the health of our soldiers before 
the Cuban campaign actually begins. Many of 
the captains of these vessels have carried troops 



38 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

before, for this or for some other country. 
Tbeir experiences of the past lead them now to 
pray that the troops will not remain long aboard 
ship. Vermin are inevitable, and, with the ports 
closed in rough weather or a choppy sea, the 
heat and misery below will be frightful. 

The officers, of course, will occupy the state- 
rooms, and for them the voyage will be as com- 
fortable as for any ocean traveler in time of 
peace. The non-commissioned officers will be 
given the second choice of rooms — that is, they 
will be quartered in what would ordinarily be 
the second-class saloon. 

Certainly the sight presented by this fleet of 
transports is worth seeing. Twenty -four, in a 
double line down the wharf, beginning at Port 
Tampa city with the Yigilanca, and ending with 
the Olivette here at the bulkhead. And beside 
new ships are arriving every day. Even as I 
write, the Red Cross steamer, State of Texas, has 
come in and dropped anchor in the bay, near our 
protecting gunboats, the Bancroft and the 
Helena. The Red Cross representative, Dr. 
Egan, is now here aboard the flagship. He re- 
ports that Clara Barton has come up from Key 
West to await orders from Washington. The 
government has officially recognized the Red 
Cross Society. But at the same time, Secretary 



TRIUMrH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 39 

Long has advised her not to sail with the trans- 
ports — advice which is equivalent to a com- 
mand. 

As a matter of fact, the Bed Cross will be of 
far more use here at Tampa than in Cuba. In 
Tampa Bay, twenty-five miles from the port, the 
largest hospital of the war has just been estab- 
lished. It is on an island called Egmont Key. 
A thousand tents, accommodating four men each, 
have been put up. To this island all the 
wounded and sick soldiers will be brought over 
from Cuba. Beside, all soldiers returning from 
the front, whether ill or well, will be detained 
here in camp for ten days. The station has, 
therefore, been named Tampa Camp of Deten- 
tion. 

Even the correspondents will be detained 
h ere — as a precaution against carrying Cuban 
fever into the United States. The station is in 
charge of Dr. Gettings and Dr. Dudley. Dr. 
Dudley was for a long time sanitary inspector at 
Havana— and is the best man that could have 
been selected for this important station. 

And now, at any moment, the army may start 
for Cuba. As they sail down the bay in this 
immense fleet of transports, they will pass the 
hospital island of Egmont Key, and wonder how 
soon they will be brought there. Will they 



40 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

arrive there as sick or wounded soldiers? Will 
they arrive there ever? 

Meanwhile the army at Tampa sleeps on its 
arms, its ears cocked, waiting for the first word 
of the order: "On to Cuba!" 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 41 



CHAPTEE V. 

A SECRET OF STATE. 

Here's a secret of state. Uncle Sam doesn't 
want the Spaniards to know it. We have been 
forbidden to mention the subject. Penalty for 
disobedience: Expulsion from Florida, our mili- 
tary passes made null and void, our connection 
with the army severed. 

The secret is that the steamship Florida sailed 
from here at noon on the 19th with arms and 
ammunitions for the insurgents in Cuba. In- 
cidentally her decks were crowded with five hun- 
dred Cuban soldiers taken from the two regi- 
ments of Cubans just recruited in Tampa. On 
the 18th, from breakfast till midnight supper, 
we noticed that the Gussie's cargo was transfer- 
ring to the Florida. We were curious. The 
Gussie had sailed to Cuba, tried to land her 
cargo, failed. Why failure? Because a Cuban, 
who was really a Spanish spy, had promised to 
pilot the Gussie to a safe landing. He kept his 
promise by steering the little paddle-wheel boat 
into an ambush of five thousand cavalrymen. 



42 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Another cause of the failure of the Gussie (so 
Uncle Sam says) was the publicity given to the 
expedition by the newspapers. So the govern- 
ment brought back the spy, a prisoner; put the 
Gussie's cargo on board the Florida, a much 
larger boat, sent her off with a guard of five hun- 
dred Cubans instead of one hundred American 
soldiers, as on the Gussie; and then gagged the 
war correspondents. 

The Florida expedition is now somewhere off 
the coast of Cuba. But the Spaniards know it 
not, for not a word has been printed about it. 
On the night of the 18th the military powers that 
be called us before them, saying: "Now, boys, 
if a single word about this expedition appears in 
any newspaper you will all be banished from 
Florida, your military passes will be taken from 
you, and you will, henceforth, be denied any 
connection whatsoever with the army, here or in 
Cuba." 

This was hard on the poor correspondents. 
For two weeks the army here had been sleeping 
on its arms. We had written everything there 
was to write, kodaked all there was to kodak. 
Crestfallen, the correspondents shambled over to 
the telegraph and wired their papers: "Don't 
print a word about Cuban expedition leaving 
here to-night on the Florida." But, good 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 43 

heavens! imagine the consternation among the 
newspaper men this morning when they received 
the New York papers. In spread heads they 
read: "Our correspondents at Tampa wire that 
we are not to print a word about the Cuban ex- 
pedition on the steamship Florida, which left 
there at noon on the 19th — uuder penalty," etc., 
etc. 

With this expedition sailed Mr. Seely, of Seely 
dinner fame. A mighty warrior was he. He 
wore a grass-colored suit, all pockets. .From one 
hip dangled a huge machete; on the other hip a 
small cannon was planted; in each boot a bowie- 
knife; over his shoulder a Krag-Jorgensen rifle. 
He was going, presumably, in search of adven- 
ture; but when I asked him, "Wherefore goest 
thou, O Seely?" he replied, "I go to introduce 
the reconcentrados to a Seely dinner." 

Now in Tampa, in addition to twenty thou- 
sand regular soldiers, we have manj r regiments of 
volunteers. The free-and-easy discipline in these 
militia camps is a source of amusement and 
amazement to our regular army officers. On the 
day of the arrival of the Florida State troops, 
Colonel Bell, of the First United States Cavalry, 
passed several boys in blue on Tampa's main 
street. They failed to salute. The colonel 
hailed them, saying: "See here, are you 
soldiers?" 



44 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

"Yes, sir." 

"Then why don't you salute? I was waiting 
to return your salute. Don't you know that it 
is customary to touch your cap to an officer?" 

"Yes, sir," replied the militia boys; "but you 
see, sir, we just arrived." 

That same day your correspondent was stroll- 
ing through the camp of a Massachusetts regi- 
ment. Some of the soldiers were cleaning out 
the underbrush when one of them hailed a pass- 
ing captain thus: "See here, cap, we've got to 
have some axes. Yes, cap, you've got to get us 
some axes before we can go ahead." 

On another occasion the colonel and the major 
of a Florida regiment were sitting on the piazza 
when two private soldiers of their command ap- 
peared. The privates walked straight up to the 
officers and slapped them on the back, saying : 
"Come on, Jim, come on, Bill, let's have a 
drink." 

Familiarity of this sort, in the regular army, 
would mean indefinite imprisonment in the 
guardhouse for the men. As several United 
States Army officers have remarked, "Our army 
can never invade Cuba successfully unless the 
volunteers learn discipline. And discipline 
means the complete subordination of individual- 
ity." 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 45 

If you happen to be dark-skinned you have 
only to appear in camp with a camera to be 
arrested as a Spanish spy. A young native of 
Tampa, dark-skinned to be sure, was seen taking 
photographs of the transports. He was arrested. 
Charge: Spanish spy. The whole village of Tampa 
arose as one person and asked General Shafter to 
release the boy — they had kuown the boy from 
babyhood. The general said: "No. The 
charges are too serious." So the boy was kept 
a prisoner. His grandmother died. He was not 
allowed to go to the funeral. His mother was 
ill, prostrated. The boy was not allowed to see 
her. At last the ladies of Port Tampa came to 
the tent where the boy was kept a prisoner. 
They watched over him, cooking his meals and 
petting him for two days. Then came the in- 
vestigation — the boy wa3 found innocent and 
released. While General Shafter himself felt 
that the boy was innocent, the charges were of 
such a serious nature that, against his better 
judgment, he was obliged to use severe measures. 
But who trumped up the charges against that 
innocent boy ? The Tampa Cubans. The Cubans 
here are, indeed, making trouble for everybody. 
The privates of the two regiments stationed here 
infested the piazzas of the hotels, jostling United 
States Army officers aside. Not one of them 



46 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

could speak English. When told that they 
would have to go to Cuba to fight they swore 
that they would not sail under the Stars and 
Stripes. Nevertheless, Uncle Sam ordered them 
to go — on the Florida. They went. 

And they were a sorry-looking lot. They were 
only half-clothed, only half-equipped, only half- 
fed. Among them were several boys of only 
twelve or thirteen years They were only half- 
drilled; some of them had been in the ranks only 
a few days. Yet Uncle Sam sent them away on 
that important expedition. 

Life in Tampa, with the army waiting for the 
order "On to Cuba!" has reduced itself to drill- 
ing by day, dancing at night, and a dreadful 
feeling of suspense all the time. Correspond- 
ents, with wild eyes and idle pencils, rush about 
as if utterly amazed that the march of events has 
temporarily come to Parade Rest. Officers sit on 
the hotel piazzas and flirt with Cuban-American 
senoritas. The men drink beer made by Plant. 
"Who is Plant? Plant is king of Florida and 
owner of nearly all the South. He is an old man 
with brains still young. Into his pockets go 
ninet3 r ~nine cents out of every dollar spent by the 
army of soldiers and visitors in Florida. Every 
thing in sight belongs to Plant. Plant is a 
happy man. He permits no competition, and 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 47 

insists upon double prices. The soldiers, and, 
in fact, all of us, must ride on Plant railroads, 
eat in Plant restaurants, sleep in Plant hotels, 
use the Plant telegraph, ship goods via Plant 
Express, drink Plant beer, smoke Plant tobacco, 
and have your linen washed in a Plant laundry. 
If this seems an unimportant subject to North- 
erners, just ask the government how much it is 
paying daily for the use of land, hotels, railroads, 
steamships, and other things owned by a man 
named Plant. The government is paj-ing Mr. 
Plant twice as much per diem for the use of his 
possessions as we pay the President of the United 
States per annum for the use of his brains. 



48 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

TAMPA VS. KEY WEST. 

At Taropa, there you are. At Key West, 
where are you? This is the difference in feeling 
between up there and down there. In Key West 
the sun sets on a mouse-colored fleet: You go 
to bed feeling that you have the navy just out- 
side your bedroom window. You wake up at 
daylight — not a ship in the harbor. At Tampa, 
however, another sort of fleet, a black fleet, is 
tied securely to the wharf. You go to bed, 
knowing that, in the morning those black ships 
will still be tugging at their lines, fore and aft. 
That's the difference between ships made to fight 
and ships made to carry troops. The fleet at 
Key West has a way of getting up steam and go- 
ing to Cuba. But the ships at Tampa simply 
stand around like the ocean-going army wagons 
that they are — waiting to carry soldiers Cuban- 
ward. 

In Key West you sit on the hotel piazza and 
wonder how your host can have the nerve to 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 49 

charge you five dollars a day for sleeping on a 
cot in the hall at night. All around you sit 
young men in duck trousers and blue serge coats 
gazing toward the infinite sea. Suddenly, a 
speck appears on the horizon and the young men 
in the white ducks come to life. They spring 
up as one man, upsetting glasses of lemonade 
and other things in the action and rush for the 
telegraph office. Every man rushes for himself 
and the hindmost looks reproachful. Oregon 
has been sighted. Is one hundred and eighty- 
two men short. Then, as if by magic, here 
comes the Mascotte from Tampa, her decks alive 
with the forms of two hundred and five blue- 
jackets, naval reserves from Chicago. These men 
will more than fill the one hundred and eighty- 
two vacancies on the Oregon. Alas, for the re- 
maining twenty -three? They must be separated 
from their shipmates and go to the Wilmington 
or to the Helena, or to some other gunboat. 
Then here comes the steamship Florida, a trans- 
port, with the four hundred and twenty Cubans 
written about before. There is trouble 
aboard. Too many captains can wreck a ship. 
The object of the expedition is to land arms and 
ammunition for the insurgent army. But the 
Cubans are fighting among themselves. Sud- 
denly comes an order from Uncle Sam: "Pro- 



50 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

ceed at once on your mission." That settles it. 
Cubans are afraid to fight among themselves in 
Uncle Sam's presence. It might hurt their 
cause. All this is sent over the telegraph by the 
young men in the white ducks. "Who are they? 
Correspondents? Yes, and something more, 
They are naval experts. A naval expert is any 
newspaper man who has been in Key West 
several weeks. A naval greenhorn is one who, 
like your correspondent, has been in Key West 
several days. 

The greenhorn's proper place is in Tampa with 
the soldiers. He has merely made a flying trip 
to Key W 7 est to see the ships. As there are no 
ships to see, he takes a ride around the city, fare 
ten cents. Ten cents for a ride in a victoria! 
Seems almost out of order after paying that five 
dollars per diem to sleep on a cot in the hotel 
corridor at night. 

This is a wicked town. It's so wicked that 
the good people have asked to have it put under 
martial law. Negroes shoot sailors at night. 
Now, that is very wicked. At Tampa the 
soldiers shoot, but they only shoot at people in 
just a playful sort of way. But in Key West the 
negroes shoot right into the sailors and kill the 
poor blue-jackets. Under martial law, Key W r est 
will probably become a more orderly town ; for 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 51 

then the marines can shoot into the negroes and 
Uncle Sam will pat them on the back. For these 
are war times. 

Now, perhaps I have shown that in Key West 
the news comes to the correspondent. In 
Tampa, however, the correspondent must go to 
the news. If he should sit on the hotel piazza 
and gaze across the boundless waste of sand not 
a speck would he see on the horizon. For the 
army is not as restless as the navy, and so the 
army stays right in one spot. The spot is the 
stretch of sand between the Tampa Bay Hotel 
and the fleet of transports at Port Tampa. 

On this spot stands a city with a population of 
twenty-seven thousand men. It is a city of 
ominous silence. For each inhabitant goes 
about with his ear cocked to hear the first word 
of the order that will send him to a strange 
island to fight and kill his fellowmen. This is a 
city of soldiers — come here and see the difference 
between the volunteers and the regulars. The 
regulars have learned discipline. The volunteers 
are learning, slowly; for camp restrictions are 
new to these men who, only a few weeks ago, 
were civilians. 

Meanwhile the transports lie patiently wait- 
ing, the last bullet and the last ration stored away 
beneath their hatches. The Olivette, the flag- 



52 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

ship of the fleet, lies at the head of the wharf, 
her decks covered with white canvas for the feet 
of General Miles and his staff to tread upon. In 
her hold are twelve stalls — four of them for the 
commanding general's own horses. The Bed 
Cross steamer lies out in the harbor, while Clara 
Barton is trying to decide whether to go to Cuba 
or not. The War Department has not ordered 
her to stay home, but it has advised her not to 
sail with the transport. The Eed Cross steamer 
is full of food — twenty-one hundred tons of bacon 
and cornmeal for the reconcentrados. The War 
Department has advised Miss Barton not to land 
that food in Cuba — till we are certain that it 
will reach the reconcentrados. Meanwhile the 
Bed Cross steamer would be most useful if 
anchored off Egmont Key, the hospital island, 
twenty-five miles down Tampa Bay, where most 
of our wounded soldiers will be brought, from 
Cuba. 

The Marine Hospital Board is now get- 
ting this island in readiness for the heroes 
maimed by shot and shell. A thousand hospital 
tents, with accommodations for four men in each 
tent, are already pitched and a number of 
phj r sicians are making themselves at home 
there. 

As the transports steam down the day, past 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 53 

that island, thousands of the men on the decks 
will ask themselves: " Shall we return there? 
Shall we ever come back at all?" 

Indeed, while the army is waiting here while 
it sleeps on its arms during these last days in 
Tampa, the men are growing thoughtful, preoc- 
cupied. They seem absent-minded; but they 
are all attention. They hear a voice within them 
and they are listening to it. "What does that 
inner voice say?" I asked a soldier. 

"It says," he replied, "something like this: 
'To be or not to be? that is the question.' 
Whether to kill or to be killed? And to be, 
means to die." 

Thus in these last days before invasion I see a 
thousand tragedies in Tampa every hour. The 
men laugh and the women weep, and both say 
good-by only to say good-by again. 

From the highest officer to the lowest orderly, 
every man feels the seriousness of the hour. 
Even the crews on the transports are aware that 
they are about to risk life and limb. Some of 
these crews have mutinied, swore they will not 
go to Cuba, threatened to desert their ships. 
But these same crews have been told that they 
must go to Cuba or go to prison. They have 
signed papers agreeing to man their steamers, 
to stand by them upon any voyage, according to 



54 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

war's whims. Uncle Sam needs every man. 
Not one can be spared. Meanwhile a squad of 
soldiers guards each steamer; not so much to 
keep the crews in as to keep visitors with 
lighted cigars out. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 55 



CHAPTER VII. 

KEY WEST'S SUDDEN FAME. 

Here are twenty thousand people, practically 
stranded on an island at the southernmost point 
of the United States. The nearest railroad sta- 
tion is one hundred and ninety miles up the east 
coast. This railroad claims to run to Key West. 
It doesn't. At a way station far up the coast 
you have to change from railroad to steamboat, 
which takes you to Key West. 

This last of the Florida keys was once the first 
city of Florida, with a population of twenty- 
three thousand— and that was only a few years 
ago. But, on account of being so thoroughly cut 
off from the world and all that in it is, the people 
decided that the situation was inconvenient, and 
began emigrating north. They went as far north 
as Tampa; in fact, they laid the foundation of 
that very important port. The majority of them 
were Cuban cigar-makers. After creating the 
famous brands of Key West cigars, they went up 
there and began making a cigar which has since 



56 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

become illustrious as the Tampa cigar. The 
principal thing in the rivalry between the two 
towns seems to be the endeavor to make the 
worst cigar and sell it at the best price. 

During these days of war, life at Key West is 
not on land, but on the water. No man goeth 
ashore unless he is obliged to. He sleeps 
ashore, of course. But he wishes the shore w r ere 
any place but the city of Key West. The hotel 
is a miniature affair that charges colossal prices. 
Just at present the many correspondents obliged 
to register here pay five dollars a day for the 
privilege of sleeping on a wire cot in the hotel 
corridor. 

During the day, when these correspondents 
are not on the water, they sit in the hotel in all 
the glory of clean duck trousers and blue serge 
coats, and drink lemonade. At the same time 
they scan the horizon, far out on the infinite 
sea, with fieldglasses that are more or less one- 
eyed. Suddenly a speck appears. Whereupon 
the correspondents spring up as one man, and 
rush to the telegraph office to wire "any old 
thing" to their various employers. After that 
they rush down to the wharf and go down 
to the sea in small boats to ascertain what 
that speck on the horizon really was. 
Having learned the exact nature of the speck — 
that is, that it is the Oregon, or the Wilming- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 57 

ton, or the New York, or the entire Schley fleet 
— they rush back to the telegraph office, and — if 
the censor will permit — wire the news that the 
former despatch was not officially confirmed, and 
that the real fact is — what they have just learned. 

At Key "West you see a great fleet of warships 
in the harbor. You go to bed in the belief that, 
when you wake up in the morning you will see 
those same vessels from your bedroom window 
— or, rather, from the window at the end of the 
corridor. But you look and look in vain. The 
ships have flown; they were ships that passed 
away in the night. Hence at Key West you 
always ask yourself : "Where am I?" And here 
is the difference between Key West and Tampa. 
For at Tampa you can always say to yourself: 
"Here I am!" In other words, you can never be 
sure of the navy at Key West, while you are 
always certain that the army will remain right 
on that spot at Tampa. 

Key West is probably the wickedest town in 
the South. And wicked does not mean criminal. 
Once in awhile a United States marine stabs a 
negro, or a negro shoots a blue-jacket But 
then such things don't count — in Key West. 
The good people of the town — that is, the minor- 
ity — have asked to have the place put under mar- 
tial law But then that doesn't count either. 



58 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

The thing that really does count is the wicked- 
ness, the vice, both of which are rampant. The 
whole town is one vast "Tenderloin," with 
Cuban refugees, bad Spaniards, and drifting 
Americans as its habitues. The Cubans won't 
fight for their island or Cuba Libre ; the Span- 
iards won't work; and the Americans follow the 
example set by the Cubans and the Spaniards. 
The Americans in Key West, by the way, are 
chiefly negroes. And most of the negroes speak 
Spanish, and understand not a word of English. 
Otherwise, how could such a population hang 
together? And speaking of hanging — well, a 
hanging, a general, Southern, go-as-you-please 
lynching, would be of great benefit to the town 
of Key West. 

Being so thoroughly cut off from the outer 
world, the Key West people have grown narrow- 
minded and ignorant, and are wholly without 
idea of w T hat the rest of the earth is like. Many 
of them have never traveled even as far as the 
mainland of Florida. Tell them the United States 
navy chose Key West as a point of concentration 
and as a news center because the city was the 
nearest port to Cuba, and they will not believe 
it. They believe that our ships come and go, to 
and from their town, simply because it is Key 
West. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 59 

Meanwhile they have seen more of life, more 
of the world, more of travelers, more of news- 
paper men, more ships, more stirring scenes, 
than ever before in their history. The shop- 
keepers have grown rich; the saloon-keepers have 
reaped a harvest; and the town itself has added 
many thousands to its treasury from the proceeds 
of wharf and anchorage charges. 



60 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER Yin. 



ARMY LYING ON ITS ARMS. 



Twenty-five transports still waiting at a cost 
of twenty-five thousand dollars per day. Sigur- 
anca, of the "Ward Hue, loaded to the hatches 
yesterday and unloaded to-day — her cargo trans- 
ferred to the Concho of the Mallory line. Same 
cargo will probably be taken out of Concho to- 
morrow and put aboard some other vessel. All 
this keeps the colored society leaders of Port 
Tampa very busy at twenty-five cents per hour. 
As long as a new commissary officer is put on 
this work every other day the loading of provi- 
sions on the wrong ships will continue. 

Meanwhile, this flagship, the Olivette, is ready 
to sail. She is probably the finest vessel in the 
fleet, and it is certain that she is the fastest. 
She is all ready to take General Shafter and his 
staff over to Cuba or to Porto Rico, or some- 
where. Twelve stalls between decks — four of 
them for Shafter's own horses. Olivette is paved 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 61 

and walled inside with carved mahogany. Mr. 
Plant, king of West Florida, and owner of all 
that in it is, figures the Olivette and all its carved 
mahogany among his possessions. With his 
usual careful regard for his property, Mr. Plant 
has caused all the carved mahogany to be covered 
with nice clean linen cloths. This precaution is 
taken, probably, to prevent such rough soldiers 
as General Shafter and his staff from scratching 
the carved mahogany. The appearance of the 
Olivette's interior at present resembles the inside 
of a West End Avenue brownstone front in the 
month of June and afterward. 

Just had a swim up the river in company with 
a whole company out of a volunteer regiment. 
Condition of discipline in volunteer regiments 
worse than reported. Privates still dining with 
colonels in dining room of Tampa Bay Hotel. 
Volunteers forget they are now part of regular 
army, and that in the army promotions are earned 
and not bought. A lieutenant of volunteers — ■ 
popular fellow — holds promissory notes bearing 
the signatures of the major and colonel of his 
regiment. The notes are security for the return 
of large amounts of money lent to his superior 
officers by the gilded lieutenant. Bad practice! 
The notes are also a promise of favors and of pro- 
motions for moneys received. Foolish lieuten- 



62 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

ants — young and ambitious and trying to pur- 
chase better shoulder-straps. 

Two deaths in a volunteer regiment in one day. 
One died because he ate too little, the other be- 
cause he ate too much. The one crossed the 
valley of the shadow as the result of not feeding 
a cold and thus allowing the cold to become 
pneumonia. The other crossed the same valley 
as the result of eating pies and doughnuts and 
candied yams when he should have been eating 
bacon and beans and fried potatoes. 

Perhaps the volunteers will learn that the un- 
palatable rations furnished by Uncle Sam's sur- 
geon-general are really the best suited for men 
in the field. 

Dawley, well-known correspondent for New 
York magazines, and until to-day member of 
General Miles' staff, has been discharged. Here 
is the document in the case: 

"Me. Dawley. 

"Dear Sir: In compliance with your request 
that I give you a written statement of the cause 
of your discharge from the position of guide con- 
nected with the bureau of Military Intelligence 
at the headquarters of the army, I have the honor 
to inform you that you have been discharged 
because of a general belief, on the part of Cubans 
especially, that you are out of sympathy with, 
and an enemy of, the Cuban cause. Some of 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 63 

them have gone so far as to state that you are a 
Spanish sympathizer. I wish it distinctly -un- 
derstood by yourself and by any people to whom 
you may show this letter that I have not, and 
never have had, the slightest doubt as to your 
thorough loyalty to the interests of the United 
States, and I have no fault whatsoever to find 
with you — in fact, nothing but commendation for 
the manner in which you have performed your 
duties while connected with this office. But the 
fact that you are regard ad by the Cuban repre- 
sentatives and by other people here, as well as in 
Washington, as hostile to the Cubans, impairs 
your efficiency to such an extent as to necessi- 
tate your discharge. The nature of the func- 
tions of this office is such that thorough confi- 
dence on the part of the Cubans is necessary. 
"(Signed) "Arthur L. Wagner, 
"Assistant Adjutant-General. " 

To this document Dawley replies "that his 
position was well defined before receiving his 
appointment in Washington, and that he accepted 
the said appointment believing that the Bureau 
of Information wanted information and not fairy 
tales." He takes his discharge in a somewhat 
humorous sense, stating that "it is only another 
proof that only one kind of information is 
wanted — that which pleases. The Cubans have 
been fooling the American people into this war, 
and now they are fooling the army. After we 



64 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

have spent millions of money and some lives too, 
then we will wake up to the fact of having been 
seriously humbugged." 

Such is Dawley's own statement. Now the 
trouble with Dawley is that he is foolish enough 
to talk more than the men who believe just what 
he does — about the Cubans. 

There are three thousand Cubans in Tampa. 
Only about two hundred have enlisted, have 
taken up arms to fight for their own island. The 
remaining twenty-eight hundred watch young 
Americans marching toward the transports ready 
to give up their lives for the Cuba of those 
twenty-eight hundred Cubans. And the twenty- 
eight hundred say: "Well, you see we can't be 
soldiers, because we are cigar-makers. We sit 
all day at a table with our backs bent, and we 
smoke and smoke, and we drink black coffee, and 
we never take exercise. We cannot walk one 
mile without losing breath, so how could we 
march for Gomez — eh?" 

I have heard some of these same twenty-eight 
hundred Cubans sitting in their restaurant in 
Tampa saying some very uncomplimentary things 
about the American soldier. 

But, after all, these are only petty details; for 
the great cause is not only Cuba, but our coun- 
try, humanity, and the Maine. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 65 

I see a tiny line of black smoke issuing from 
the funnel of the Olivette. And all down the 
line of transports I see the same sort of a tiny 
line of black smoke issuing from twenty-five 
funnels. All the regiments of the Fifth Corps 
under General Shafter have orders to be in readi- 
ness to move "on notice." How long will it be 
before these tin}' lines of smoke become great 
clouds? Some say Wednesday, June 8. Others, 
June 18 is nearer to the date of actual embarka- 
tion. Meanwhile each of the twenty-seven regi- 
ments in the Fifth Corps are making requisitions 
for ten days' travel rations and fourteen days' 
field rations. 

The uniform prescribed for the Cuban cam- 
paign has not arrived ; that is, not generally. A 
few officers have ordered uniforms on their own 
account, and very cool they look in cotton linen. 
But the rank and file must go to Cuba in cloth 
uniforms — and sleep on the ground. For the 
hammocks which we expected to take with us 
have not arrived. Heavy clothes, no hammocks 
— is somebody blundering? 

This correspondence should really date some- 
where off the Cuban coast. For according to the 
daily newspapers we sailed several days ago. I 
read that the entire fleet of transports left here 
June 1, that the expedition stopped at Key West 



66 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

just to say good-by, and that General Miles in a 
gunboat is leading the way toward the Wind- 
ward Passage. All this shows what a fine press 
censor we have at Tampa, and how good our 
newspapers prove themselves by printing fakes 
for the deception of the enemy. I suppose the 
newspapers are printing pictures this morning 
showing the location of the fleet of transports 
somewhere near Santiago. But as a matter of 
fact we are just terribly snugly anchored here at 
Port Tampa, and this morning I saw General 
Miles eating oatmeal in a quiet domestic way 
with his little son in the palatial dining room of 
the Tampa Bay Hotel. 

And all the others were there, too. Frederic 
Remington and all of them. They were sitting 
all around the rotunda. Remington disappeared 
to change his uniform; that is, he went upstairs 
to change his yellow suit for a baby-blue one; 
perhaps in the mornings Remington works for 
the New York Journal, and in the afternoons for 
Harpers' Weekly. And then there were all the 
wild-eyed correspondents who seemed afraid to 
speak above a whisper lest the censor hear them. 
And there were all the volunteer private soldiers 
lolling on Mr. Plant's cushioned settees and 
puffing out clouds of death-dealing smoke from 
five-cent Tampa smokers. And there were a great 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 67 

many people called "Crackers," whom Mr. Plant 
had just brought down to Tampa on his railroad 
at fifty cents per capita to see his hotel. Well, 
these Crackers came into the rotunda, and when 
they saw the supreme ease with which the volun- 
teer privates lolled around on the settees they 
decided that they had stepped into a nest of 
major-generals. It was really pathetic to see 
General Lee, plump and rotund, sitting in the 
background of a bay window all unobserved. 
And with him little and lithe General Wheeler, 
and the ponderous German military attache, and 
Captain Lee, the dapper English representative, 
and in front of all these the little band of hero- 
worshiping correspondents. 



68 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE EXPEDITION SAILS AT LAST. 

They sailed from Tampa this morning at day- 
break — June 14, 1898 — the twenty -five thousand 
men under General Shafter, composing the first 
army of invasion that has ever left the shores of 
the United States. They were to have sailed on 
the 7th. They went aboard that day. But they 
did not sail on the 7th because they were not 
ready. So they all lived on the ships for a whole 
week — week of heat that prostrated the men in 
the holds of the ships, and made even General 
Shafter miserable. General Shafter's actual 
weight is three hundred and forty-five pounds. 
If he should happen to ride in a saddle not made 
to his order he would break any horse's back. 
But that is only incidental. From the com- 
manding officer in his luxurious deck stateroom 
to the last man on the lowest tier of rough wooden 
bunks in the lower 'tween decks, they suffered. 
For a whole week the army of invasion was in- 
deed les miserables. Then orders came for the 
expedition to move yesterday. At the last 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 69 

minute, however, they discovered that the date 
was the 13th. The ship captains objected. The 
government humored their superstitions. So 
the ships did not go down to the sea till this 
morning. 

Now I search the horizon with a fieldglass. 
The sea is an opal expanse, not a flaw on its sur- 
face. The last ship, number thirty-two, has dis- 
appeared. Not even a wreath of smoke, not even 
a mast-top can be seen. All the ships were num- 
bered — from one to thirty-two. They sailed 
away, four abreast, four lines of eight ships each. 
Imposing to the sightseer, tragic to the philoso- 
pher. They were bound for — ? Outside of Gen- 
eral Shafter and his staff only one man on the 
expedition knew whither they were bound. 
That was Captain Hausen, of the flagship Sigur- 
anca, carrying Shafter. The slowest and small- 
est ship of the fleet, the Gussie, led the way and 
set the pace. The flagship was in the rear on 
the right. 

"What a week this has been, this week of em- 
barkation! Seven days of chaos and confusion. 
We have been cut off from the world. Not one 
telegram could be sent, not even a telegram of 
the most private nature. Last week's mail is 
leaving to-day. It has been lying in the post 
office in one of twenty clothes baskets ever since 



70 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

we attached the postage stamps. The little post 
office was unable to handle the vast quantity of 
matter. Soldiers were detailed to help the 
dazed, amazed postmaster. So the army mail 
was partly attended to and the civilian mail 
ignored. Finally the postmaster refused to sell 
any more stamps — by order of Shafter. Any- 
thing to keep the news of the expedition from 
the newspapers. The boys in blue, however, 
posted their letters minus stamps. According to 
law, any letter with the word soldier written on 
the corner of the envelope in place of the stamp 
goes "collect at other end." 

Of the twenty-five thousand men on the ships 
half were allowed ashore at a time. As there 
were barely twelve thousand five hundred square 
feet of shore for them to stand on, they were 
about as miserable as on the ships. However, 
they uttered no complaints, excepting to curse 
the delay and to criticise the inefficiency of the 
quartermaster's department. Shore at Port 
Tampa means a pier, a wharf a hundred feet wide 
and a mile long. To get a whiff of fresh air the 
twelve thousand five hundred men sat on the rail 
along the wharf. For recreation they bathed in 
the water under the wharf. For a whole week 
the wives of army officers at the inn at Port 
Tampa could not leave the hotel piazza— a very 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 71 

satisfactory imprisonment, since thousands of 
miserable soldiers were taking a necessary bath. 
The expedition has sailed. But did Shafter 
sail because he was ordered to or because his 
army was ready? All who know the condition of 
that army know that if Shafter had waited to sail 
till his corps was ready he would have postponed 
the departure for at least one month. The army 
moves to tropical country wearing the same 
clothing it wore in Montana, Dakota, Idaho. 
The uniform worn by those men would be warm 
enough in the Klondike. The Seventy-first New 
York and the Second Massachusetts carried their 
overcoats. "Who was to blame? Those over- 
coats alone, two thousand of them, when piled 
together, weighed nearly ten tons and took up 
valuable space on two ships. Now on the wharf 
lie at least ten tons of food that should have gone 
with the expedition. Why did those men take 
overcoats that will only be thrown away before 
they have marched ten miles into the interior of 
Cuba? Why was necessary food crowded out? 
No one is to blame because no one knows who to 
blame. But, beside the matter of clothing, was 
the army ready? They carried a small amount 
of canned roast beef and a vast quantity of bacon. 
None of the men and only a few of the officers 
had hammocks. This means that they will sleep 



72 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

in the mud in an island where the rain comes 
down sidewise. The principal protection against 
sickness in Cuba is to keep dry. With the rain 
pouring every day four or five hours in torrents, 
how can the men keep dry ? Some have ponchos, 
but only a few have rubber blankets. It would 
be useless to speak of these things if it were too 
late to mend. But there is yet time for the War 
Department to send those brave soldiers twenty- 
five thousand thin uniforms, twenty-five thou- 
sand waterproof blankets and twenty-five thou- 
sand hammocks. These things should be sent at 
once. 

One of the most interesting features of this 
expedition was the number of prominent and 
wealthy men who accompanied it. Colonel John 
Jacob Astor, attached to Shafter's staff as acting 
assistant inspector-general, loafed around the 
hotel for a whole week with most democratic 
simplicity. He dined Shafter and several of the 
staff at the inn every day. And as he was pay- 
ing for the dinner, he quite rightly took the head 
of the table, seating Shafter at any old place. 
Military rank thus gave way to money. Colonel 
Astor, courteous to everybody, modest all the 
time, is liked by all with whom he comes in 
contact. 

One morning during the week the crowd at the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 73 

inn was so great that the waiters simply could 
not wait on everybody. So everybody helped 
himself. John Jacob Astor washed cups and 
saucers, Theodore Eoosevelt went into the kitchen 
and made coffee, William Astor Chanler cut up a 
loaf of bread into slices, Richard Harding Davis 
hunted up the finger-bowls. They had a very 
fine time. 

Two weeks ago we thought it a fine thing to 
have a number of colonels at the inn. But this 
week we had generals — generals as thick as for- 
merly we had colonels. Silver stars became as 
ordinary as crabs along shore. 

At last all were aboard; twenty-five regiments 
of infantry, two light and two heavy batteries, 
the engineer corps, the hospital corps, the signal 
corps, and four regiments of cavalry — dis- 
mounted. How disheartened those cavalrymen 
were. The idea of taking away their horses. If 
there was no room for horses on the transports, 
then why didn't Shafter take infantry? With- 
out a horse, how can a soldier be a cavalryman? 
Even the correspondents, after buying expensive 
horses, could not get their mounts aboard. In 
the march through the rain and the mud of Cuba 
(or Porto Rico) only the general officers will 
ride. 



74 TRIUMPH OF TJANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER X. 



OUR FIRST INVADING ARMY. 



The first army of invasion was not ready, but 
nevertheless, despite its unpreparedness, it sailed 
for Cuba. It was neither equipped nor properly 
clothed, nor had it the right provisions fo* a 
tropical campaign; but, just the same, it left 
Port Tampa at daybreak on the 14th of June. 
The artillery sailed without horses enough to 
pull what few guns they took along. The 
cavalry sailed without any horses at all. Why 
were they still called cavalrymen? When Gen- 
eral Shafter took the horses from under his 
cavalrymen he took out their hearts. They 
sailed without interest in their work. With a 
hundred regiments of foot soldiers to draw from, 
the cavalrymen could not understand why they 
should be dismounted. So the army of invasion 
sailed away to slaughter and yet to victory. 
Shafter with fourteen thousand five hundred and 
sixty-four men and seven hundred and seventy- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 75 

three officers, in thirty-two transports convoyed 
by eighteen ships of war. 

Outside the harbor they formed four abreast, 
in four lines, eight in a line. The Gussie, small- 
est and slowest of the fleet, led the way and set 
the pace. In the rear, on the right, came the 
flagship, Seguranca, carrying Shafter and his 
staff, and Colonel John Jacob Astor. In the 
staterooms on deck were the seven hundred and 
seventy-three officers. They were comfortable. 
They had stewards to wait upon them, and they 
could have three meals a day in the saloon at 
fifty cents per meal. Down below, 'tween decks 
and packed in the lower 'tween decks, were the 
fourteen thousand five hundred and sixty-four 
men. They slept in rough wooden bunks, without 
mattresses, with the ports closed, with the tem- 
perature at one hundred and two degrees, and 
with seasickness as a promise. Even before 
they started many of the men were overcome by 
the heat and had to be sent on the hospital train 
to the arm}' hospital at Chickamauga. For a 
whole week before sailing those men lived aboard 
the ships. Miserable, unhappy, dreadful week. 
Still the soldiers were patient. Their only com- 
plaint was that they had to live on the cold food 
known as travel rations, and they confined their 
anger to cursing the delay. 



?6 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

On June 6th and 7th General Miles came to 
Port Tampa. "Wrath gathered on his brow. He 
called up his chief commissary and his chief 
quartermaster and reprimanded them. No won- 
der! This is what General Miles found at Port 
Tampa: confusion and chaos. Thousands of 
troops pouring in on trains and stranded on the 
wharf, not knowing to which ship they belonged. 
Troops finally put aboard any old ship that lay 
nearest — a company here, a company there, end- 
ing in the scattering of a regiment over many 
ships. The Second Massachusetts was divided 
among four ships. The Seventy-first New York, 
by a strategic maneuver of Lieutenant Alexander 
Williams, of Company I, managed to get the 
Yigilancia all to itself. Williams, with a guard 
of seven men, rowed out to the Vigilancia, racing 
a boat's crew composed of the Ninth United 
States Infantry. Williams got alongside first, 
left his men to guard the rope ladder, climbed 
aboard, and reported to the captain: "Seventy- 
first New York aboard, sir." This was the way 
each regiment had to scramble for a ship. 

Officers arrived and could not find their own 
companies. One or two officers were three days 
going from one transport to another looking for 
their companies. Shepherds in search of lost 
sheep never were so unhappy as those officers. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 77 

in fact, when the embarkation began, and indeed 
until it ended, there was no head, no one to 
whom officer or man could apply for information. 
Each regiment hustled for itself as best it could. 
By noontime on the 7th General Miles' anger had 
grown to fury. He wondered why he had not 
investigated matters at Port Tampa before. Then 
came a telegram from Washington, "Suspend ex- 
peition." The general's fury turned to con- 
sternation. 

From the moment the embarkation began, 
Port Tampa was cut off from the world as thor- 
oughly as any island in midocean. AVe could 
get telegrams neither out nor in. The tiny post 
office suddenly found itself confronted by a mail 
first-class in size. The postmaster received no 
help and he could not handle the mail alone. So 
our mail lay in the post office till after the ex- 
pedition sailed, when wo learned that the mail 
was held, not because the postmaster could not 
handle it, but because the press censor forbade 
the forwarding of any mail whatsoever, lest news 
about the expedition get out of Tampa. Corre- 
spondents dared not write a line. They went 
about with a thoroughly scared expression, fear- 
ing to speak a loud word. For Lieutenant 
Miley, of General Shafter's staff, had already 
declared that newspaper men were a great nui- 



78 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

sance, and later he threatened to cast out corre- 
spondents altogether from the army of invasion. 
He relented at last, and three hundred and four 
correspondents, most of them photographers, ac- 
companied the expedition. They were stowed 
away on different ships, wherever they could find 
vacant berths. About twenty sailed on the 
Olivette, twenty more on the Caracas, seven or 
eight on the flagship Seguranca, and the remain- 
der, by fours and sixes, over the entire fleet. 

There was no attempt at an even and fair dis- 
tribution of troops over the various ships. Some 
were overcrowded, while others were only half 
filled. On board the Iroquois, containing Roose- 
velt's "Rough Riders," and the Miami, contain- 
ing the First United States Cavalry, the crowding 
was so great that the officers had to sleep in the 
rough wooden bunks set apart for the men. On 
board the Comal, however, with the artillery, 
each officer had not only a berth but a whole 
stateroom to himself, and there were twelve 
staterooms unoccupied. 

During the week of embarkation the presence 
of so many thousand soldiers in Port Tampa 
caused a small-sized famine. Within forty-eight 
hours of the time the first soldier went aboard 
the Orizaba— the first boat loaded — the food at 
the hotel had given out. We were hungry, and 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 79 

there was naught to eat; thirsty, and nothing 
but tepid water to drink. The railroad tracks 
between Port Tampa and Tampa, nine miles 
away, were blocked with troop trains, and not a 
pound of supplies could reach the land of famine. 
It was rather a novel sight to see John Jacob 
Astor going about with a hungry look, begging 
the waiters and the hotel manager for a crust of 
bread. For two days we lived on canned meats, 
canned vegetables, canned fruits, and condensed 
milk — J. J. Astor and all. And for this we paid 
five dollars per diem and were still exceeding 
glad. 

During all the days of our famine the fourteen 
thousand five hundred and sixty-four soldiers 
were kept busy embarking, or, rather, disem- 
barking. All the officers' horses were taken off 
and led back to camp, there to remain till the 
final orders came to sail. Mules there were on 
board by the hundred. Two ships were loaded 
with nothing but mules and civilian mule-packers. 
As only a few wagons and still fewer ambulances 
were taken, the work of transporting supplies 
will devolve almost entirely on the pack mules. 
They are certainly more convenient than lumber- 
some wagons for carrying army stores over the 
steep hills of Cuba. 

I would hold my tongue and say nothing about 



80 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

the faults, flaws, mistakes, and blunders that 
characterized the first expedition, were it not 
possible to correct these same faults in expedi- 
tions that are to follow. As the work of equip- 
ping an invading army is new to us, there is 
some excuse for the chaos and confusion attend- 
ing the departure of the initial movement toward 
invasion. Quartermasters and commissaries 
ought certainly to profit by the mistakes just 
made, and let experience guide them in fitting 
out any future expeditions. For instance, it 
ought not to be necessary again to lose a hun- 
dred or more cars loaded with freight siinpb' 
because no one thought to take down the num- 
bers of the cars. And this is what really did 
happen to a hundred-odd cars on the road be- 
tween Jacksonville and Tampa. An accident, a 
smash-up, side-tracking of cars, train split up, 
cars lost. Those cars have not yet been found, 
and Shafter's army had to sail without their 
much-needed contents, yet despite every draw- 
back each man of the invading army chafed to 
fight. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 81 



CHAPTER XI. 

WITH LEE AT JACKSONVILLE. 

Here he is, mingling with the throng on the 
piazas of the Windsor Hotel, the hero of Havana, 
the idol of the South, the leader-to-be of the 
forces in Cuba, General Fitzhugh Lee. He holds 
the keys of Jacksonville town, the only city in 
Florida not owned by an individual like Mr. 
Plant or Mr. Flagler. Lee's corps, the Seventh, 
numbers twenty thousand men. They are en- 
camped all around the outskirts of the city. 
Therefore the Windsor Hotel is equidistant from 
all camping centers; a fact which enables the 
general to visit his men by day and attend ban- 
quets at night, with great personal convenience 
on both occasions. How fine he looks in Ins 
major-general's uniform! He is portly, but he 
carries his two hundred and ninety pounds 
gracefully. He has the same smile for all and 
the same merry creases at the corner of his eyes 
as when I last saw him, at Key West, after that 
last voyage from Havana, April 9. I remember 



82 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

now how lie shook his fist at Havana as we stood 
on the deck of the Olivette while that plucky 
steamer pulled out of the harbor of our enemies. 
Lee shook his fist at the Spaniards and said he 
wanted to have a chance to "show them" later. 
His hopes are about to be realized. For he has 
been promised the leadership of an army against 
Havana. 

And he is preparing for the fray. He is proud 
of his men. He knows he will lead them to vic- 
tory. In their turn, the men think there is no 
general in the army, Miles and Brooke and Shaf- 
ter included, like Lee. I am bound to say that, 
of all the camps I have visited, in none have I 
found the cheerfulness, the enthusiasm and the 
health which characterize Camp Cuba Libre. 
There's a little too much pomp and ceremony 
and processions and brass bands just at present, 
but the boys will get over that when the order 
comes to board the transports. Before Lee 
arrived in Jacksonville some one named the en- 
campment Camp Springfield. But Lee did not 
like the name. It was commonplace, it meant 
nothing. So he rechristened it Camp Cuba 
Libre, and thus gave to Jacksonville the honor 
of having the camp with the most unique name. 
And oh, how Jacksonville bows and scrapes to 
Lee! There are Lee billiard parlors and Lee 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 83 

restaurants and Lee shoe stores on every corner. 
There is a Lee brand of ice cream, and the boot- 
blacks have what they call a Lee shine. 

You see, Lee is very obliging. Ask him to a 
banquet and he accepts and makes just the sort 
of speech you expect. He rides a horse at the 
head of processions, dines at the head of private 
tables, is serenaded nightly by brass bands from 
Illinois and North Carolina and Iowa, and alto- 
gether he is kept quite as busy socially as in a 
military sense. 

Meanwhile he does not forget that he must 
prepare for the campaign against Havana. He 
is trying to reduce his weight by riding horse- 
back at least one half-hour every day and by tak- 
ing the natural Turkish bath afforded by a five 
minutes' walk in the sun. At the same time he 
keeps an eye on the newspapers, looking for news 
f L ee _f or he loves to read about Lee— and for 
news of the transports. He would like to know 
whether his corps is to embark here or at Fer- 
nandina, twenty-nine miles up the coast, or at 
Tampa, two hundred and fifty miles across State. 
As Jacksonville has only fourteen feet of water 
and Fernandina only twenty, while Tampa has 
twenty-four, he rather thinks we will all go back 
to Tampa. Anyway, he hopes the embarkation 
point will not be Fernandina j for there is no 



84 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

big hotel up there, no room for processions and 
brass bands, no facilities for speech-making. 
For Lee is Napoleonic in his ideas. v He believes 
in amusing the people; in giving them forever 
something new. The greatest compliment I can 
pay General Lee is to say that he has as many 
faults as merits. Therefore he is human, and the 
man who is human is bound to make mistakes, 
and he who makes mistakes is the sort known in 
the South as the heap smart good fellow. 

I have reason to know all this showing off 
bores the general, bores him fearfully. But he 
is a man who is bound to be agreeable at the 
sacrifice of personal comfort and inclination. He 
itches and aches and pines and hankers for the 
real thing, the killing and exterminating — of 
Spaniards — in the island which, since reconcen- 
trados were invented, lost its claim to being the 
Pearl of the Antilles. 

I left Tampa as quiet as a Florida hamlet on 
Sunday at church time. Even General Cop- 
piuger had left the Tampa Bay Hotel and gone 
into camp near the regiments of his Second 
Army Corps. And as John Jacob Astor and 
Theodore Roosevelt and William Astor Chanler 
and Barnum Seely and Richard Harding Davis 
and Stewart Brice and Hallett Borrowe had gone 
to Cuba with Shafter, there was nobody in 
Tampa fit to speak to. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 85 

But after the apathy, the lack of interest dis- 
played by the Tampaites in the army, the inter- 
est, the practical help and attention of the people 
of Jacksonville, in the matter of soldier boys, are 
refreshing. All the ladies of this delightful 
town, especially those who belong to churches, 
have formed themselves into bands, committees 
to look after the welfare of the soldiers. Of 
course, they all first insist upon entertaining 
General Lee's distinguished staff. They are 
proud of welcoming to their front doors and 
front parlors such elegant young men as Major 
Algernon Sartoris, grandson of the Grant; Major 
Eussell Harrison, son of the second Harrison; 
Lieutenant Hobart, nephew of Vice-President 
Hobart, and that other member of Lee's staff — ■ 
I've forgotten his name, for the moment; but 
anyway ha is the husband of Evangelina Cis- 
neros, whom everyone knows as the Cuban 
heroine and the protegee of General Lee. 

Well, after the ladies of Jacksonville have prop- 
erly entertained the eminent staff, they then 
proceed to take needles and thread and new but- 
tons and clam broth and sympathy and advice to 
the volunteer soldier boys in Camp Cuba Libre. 
I see them everywhere, in every camp. They 
are angels of mercy, good Samaritans, and the 
boys take off their hats to them and salute as 



S6 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

they would salute the Star Spangled Banner. The 
good angels mend the volunteers' clothes, give 
the sympathy to the younger and homesick lads, 
the advice to those who really need advice — and 
no wonder Camp Cuba Libre is so cheerful. 
Most of the good angels are young and pretty, 
and have eyes that are black and that snap, and 
a most delicious accent, that reminds you that 
they are daughters of the land of palms and 
pomegranates and luscious fruits and ripe things 
generally. I've seen more than one young lieu- 
tenant steal silently into his tent by night, there 
to secretly rend his clothes and to clip the but- 
tons therefrom. And that is certainly disloyal to 
the sweethearts at home — the motive, alone, 
shows a fickle mind. 

Home! How the volunteer loves home! And 
in Jacksonville all are volunteers. The regulars 
— for the same go to Tampa — call home the camp 
in which they sleep. Most of them have neither 
kith nor kin, and hence no home elsewhere. 
But with the volunteer things are different. He 
is just from the hearthstone, just from arms 
that held him in loving embrace, just from 
friends and relations that pampered and petted 
him and made him believe himself a mighty war- 
rior to whom the glory of a Grant would come at 
the war's enc|. The volunteer thinks of these 



TRIUMrH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 87 

folks at home and does not know that they are 
really very silly and sentimentally foolish. So, 
knowing that he cannot leave Jacksonville for at 
least thirty days from date, he writes to these 
folks to come see him off. As a P. S. he tells 
them to bring his wheel. 

Now, the wheel is all right. For the streets of 
this town are as level as Broadway, and all brick- 
paved, and smooth as ribbed asphalt; and, alto- 
gether, there's no finer city for wheeling in the 
South. But the folks — oh, if each of the boys 
had to live in this hotel with all the folks of all 
the other fellows, he would never have sent for 
his own dear ones. But here they are, all the 
folks, waiting to see their darling boys off to the 
front. The only way j r ou can cross the piazza 
through the jam of mammas and papas from 
North Carolina and Georgia and New Jersey and 
Ohio is to wriggle through sidewise. 

Meanwhile, the volunteer is everything and 
the regular is nothing. The volunteer is the 
hero and the regular is forgotten. And that is 
why Jacksonville is the center of interest just 
now — because the volunteers are drilling and 
parading and packing up for the march upon 
Havana under the only Lee. 



88 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CAMP CUBA LIBRE. 

Lee still at Jacksonville without enough 
soldiers in his command to justify his making 
his headquarters in the field. Lee still at the 
Windsor Hotel with his staff of president's and 
vice-president's sons. Generals all around him 
ordered to Cuba or to Porto Rico while he, Lee, 
remains far in the rear off in one corner of 
Florida. Why? Lee himself does not know. 
Men, whole regiments, are taken from his corps 
and put in other corps ready for the front. He 
has ten regiments in his camp here. He is 
entitled to twenty-seven. He does not know 
where the remaining seventeen regiments are 
coming from. Meanwhile, we are wondering 
whether this side-tracking of the hero of Havana, 
the idol of the South and the owner of Jackson- 
ville, is the result of jealousy at Washington. Is 
Lee too dangerous a candidate for the president's 
chair, or is he being held for the grand, smash- 
ing, killing campaign that will precede the 
investment of Havana? 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 89 

Down at Tampa transports are assembling for 
another Cuban expedition. Up at Fernandina 
and down at Miami on the east coast of Florida, 
transports are assembling for the expeditions to 
Porto Eico. Is Lee going to Porto Kico — after 
all the talk of making him governor-general of 
Cuba? The other day the general thought per- 
haps he was really going to Porto Eico. But 
when he looked round upon his poor little third 
of a corps he said ruefully: "But then, of 
course, I can't go even to Porto Eico without 
soldiers behind me." 

Fernandina has been selected as a fine place 
from which to embark troops. The fact is, Fer- 
nandina offers only slightly better railroad 
embarkation facilities than Tampa. Simply, Mr. 
Flagler and the Florida Central Peninsular have 
pulled the right wires at Washington — perhaps 
better wires than those pulled by Mr. Plant, of 
the Tampa-Plant System. 

After a visit to Fernandina I am bound to say 
that at least the single railroad running there is 
better equipped for the handling of masses of 
troops and great quantities of freight than is the 
Plant Line at Tampa. Indeed, after the wretched 
and parsimonious management displayed by the 
Plant system, any road in the country can easily 
rank next to the worst. The F. C. P. running 



90 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

to Fernandina is doing all it can to be ready for 
the approaching rush of business. 

Fernandina itself is an island at the entrance 
of Cumberland Sound, on the Florida east coast, 
forty miles north of Jacksonville. It is so near 
the sea that a good warship could knock the city 
into kindling wood. But it has a pretty good 
roadstead, with room for a fleet of transports. 
Beyond the city limits there is room, easily, for 
the cantonments of an army of one hundred 
thousand men. The natives, five thousand strong, 
support themselves exporting phosphates and 
lumber. And these same natives are fairly wild 
with anticipation of the wealth they are about to 
reap from Uncle Sam's soldiers. By the time 
this is printed they will all be Croesuses and 
Fernandina will be exploited in all papers the 
country over. 

Meanwhile the boys at Jacksonville, all volun- 
teers, are writing home to Illinois, North Caro- 
lina, Mississippi, Iowa, New Jersey, Arizona — ■ 
writing that they are well taken care of in the 
best camp in the country, under the eye of the 
best of major-generals, Fitzhugh Lee. The 
Southern boys, by the way, always write the 
name, Fitz Lee. For that is the way its owner 
signed the name during the days of the "late 
unpleasantness, sah. " 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 91 

And, O Lord! it's great fun to see the regi- 
ments from the South and those from the North 
falling all over each other in the frantic rush to 
embrace and utter assurances that the said late 
unpleasantness has been forgotten. General Lee 
sets the pace by having Sartoris, grandson of 
Grant, on his staff. Think of that combination! 

The other day Jacksonville unveiled a soldiers' 
and sailors' monument in the park facing Lee's 
hotel headquarters. That was a great day — for 
the Northerners. Every Northern officer in the 
Seventh Army Corps made a speech, during 
which he wept for the poor boys who had gone 
to their death and for whom that noble shaft was 
erected. 

The day after the Mississippi regiment arrived 
Colonel Guild, inspector-general, called at the 
camp on official business. The Southern colonel 
received him most effusively, saying: "Welcome 
to this camp, sah. I want you to know, sah, 
that this regiment is made up of gentlemen who 
hold the highest social positions in Mississippi, 
sah. And now, sah, I want you to step into my 
tent and try some of the finest Mississippian 
whisky, sah." 

"But," protested the inspector, "I have called 
to inspect your camp. Won't you please issue 
the necessary orders for inspection?" 



92 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

"Inspection, sah? I don't know as I exactly 
understand you? You see, sah, the boys made 
rae colonel of this regiment. Bat, I assure you, 
sah, I know absolutely nothing about military 
affairs. I leave all such matters to my adjutant. 
Now, sah, I think it's a long time between 
drinks, sah." 

With a colonel who knows nothing about mili- 
tary affairs, the discipline in the ranks of that 
Mississippi regiment may be imagined. During 
the inspection of the rank and file, whom the 
adjutant at last drew up in line, the inspector- 
general came to a gray-haired private who 
handled his piece with some skill. 

"This is evidently not new business to you," 
remarked the inspector. 

"No, sah," replied the private. "I served the 
Southern Confederacy from '61 to '65, sah, and I 
tell you I'm profoundly glad to be inspected to- 
day, sah, by a Southern inspector, sah." 

"But I'm not a Southerner," said Colonel 
Guild. "I'm from Boston. " 

Whereupon the private threw his piece to the 
ground, advanced to where Colonel Guild stood, 
and embraced him, welcoming him to the regi- 
ment "in the name of Mississippi, sah." 

On the evening of that same day the Missis- 
sippi regiment put its men on guard, telling the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 93 

sentinels that they must challenge all comers, as 
instructed. One of the officers returning late in 
the evening was challenged by the sentinel thus: 
"Halt, there! Hie, there, mister, I see you first!" 

The crack regiment in Cuba Libre Camp is the 
Second New Jersey. This regiment is fully 
equipped, well drilled, and is filled to war 
strength. Therefore General Lee trembles lest 
the New Jersey boys be taken from him to send 
over to Sh after. 

Every evening one of the regimental bands 
serenades Lee in front of the hotel. Governor 
Bloxham (Florida) heard one of the bands play- 
ing "America" with variations. He hurried to 
Washington. When he returned he brought a 
copy of an order issued by Secretary Alger for- 
bidding "America," the national hymn, to be 
played with variations or in any medley of 
tunes — not only in Florida, but in any camp in 
the country. We all voted three cheers for 
Florida's governor, for we were tired of hearing 
"America" played in with such tunes as "All 
Coons," "Hot Time," and so on. 



94 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

GOSPEL IN THE ARMY. 

For the boys in blue Sunday is a day of rest. 
All drills, all fatigue work, all duties not abso- 
lutely necessary are dropped. From the time 
they answer to the reveille roll-call at 5 :20 a. 
m., till tattoo roll-call at 9 p. m., the enlisted 
men have everything their own way. The inter- 
vening hours are their own to spend as they 
choose. Some go to Chattanooga, some stroll 
through the country, but the majority remain in 
camp. For the thousands of stay-at-homes to- 
day with nothing to read, came plenty of the 
best reading matter. How eagerly they sought 
the copies of The Chris'ian Herald! How promptly 
they went to the shade of the nearest tree to 
read them ! How grateful and appreciative they 
seemed! 

At Battlefield Station at early morning we 
hired a surrey, and into it stored five thousand 
copies. The work of distribution consumed an 
entire day. At sunset we had visited every 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 95 

camp, placed a copy in every tent, handed a 
copy to every passing soldier. Mrs. Willetts 
distributed copies to hundreds who gathered 
around our wagon, and our colored driver carried 
copies to those in remote places. 

I had expected to find some scoffing, but found 
none. Nearly all the men were already ac- 
quainted with The Christian Herald. According 
to their own words, it was "a good paper to 
read." "At last, at last!" some of them said. 
"Why didn't you come before?" "Just what 
we have been waiting for." "Haven't seen a 
copy since leaving Fort Assiniboine," or "Fort 
Riley," or "Fort Logan," according to the post 
they had come from. 

It is unnecessary to add that we visited officers 
as well as men. 

Mrs.Willets' experiences were quite as gratify- 
ing as my own. A woman in camp at any time 
is one upon whom is conferred the deepest re- 
spect. The men tilted their campaign hats with 
Chesterfieldian grace, and loaded her with keep- 
sakes, and the queerest keepsakes, too — as their 
thanks for copies of the paper. 

"What a pleasure it was as we drove back by 
this or that camp already visited, to see the men 
singly or in groups, everywhere under the trees, 



96 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

on bales of hay, in the shade of tents, busily 
reading. 

"Glad to see you," said Chaplain Bateman, at 
the Tenth Infantry camp. "You are doing good 
-work. Giving the men something to read is a 
kindness in itself. When the reading is a paper 
like The Christian Herald, the kindness is of a 
good, helpful, practical sort. All of the men in 
the Sixteenth know of your paper — in fact, we 
have been receiving it weekb' for a long time at 
post. Put me down for a thousand copies every 
week. I will distribute them myself, too. I 
have had some correspondence with the pub- 
lisher. Through his paper he is well known by 
the men of the Sixteenth. Thank him for me." 

In the post office at Battlefield Station, at the 
close of the day, we posted a homemade, but 
nevertheless businesslike sign. It reads: 

" TJie Christian Herald will be mailed weekly, 
free of charge, to all who wish it. Please indi- 
cate your desire by writing your name in the 
book on the counter — also give both your regi- 
mental and home address." 

The army here goes to bed with its clothes on, 
and sleeps on its arms. The fleet of transports 
lies at the long wharf out in the harbor, with 
steam up Tiny wreaths of black smoke pour 
out of forty funnels. The last bullet and the last 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 97 

ration and the last lump of coal are aboard. The 
ships are full, clean up to their hatches. 

One of the prisoners in our care was brought 
here as the captive of brave Captain Dorst, who 
commanded the Gussie expedition. The mission 
of the Gussie, a small side-wheeler, was to land 
arms, ammunition and food on Cuban soil for the 
use of the insurgents. Captain Dorst failed; 
failed because betrayed by this same, harmless 
Spaniard, who calls himself a Cuban. At the 
point where the expedition landed, Dorst found 
this man living alone in a shamble. Asked if 
there were any Spanish soldiers in the neighbor- 
hood, the man replied No! Would he guide the 
party to the nearest insurgent camp? Yes! 
Whereupon the man led the landing-party 
straight into an ambush of Spanish cavalry. 
The Gussie returned to Tampa, and the traitor is 
now in a sort of guard-tent in the First Infantry 

camp. 

When I saw the prisoner, I said to him : "Are 
you sorry." His reply was astounding : "The 
Spaniards paid well," he said, "and who cares!" 

General Howard and Major Whittle have left 
Tampa for Mobile. Keligious work here is car- 
ried on by Dr. Dixon and the regimental chap- 
lains. All the services and good works described 
in last week's Christian Herald continue. Meet- 



98 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

ings are held twice, and sometimes thrice, every 
day — not in one place, but in many parts of the 
field at once. Every volunteer regiment has its 
own chaplain, but for some good reason, perhaps 
because the civilian soldiers have so recently 
come from cities where there are churches on 
every street corner, the services at the volunteer 
camps are not nearly so largely attended as those 
held in the camps of the regulars. 

In all the military camps, the "church call" 
has become one of the routine duties of the 
buglers. The calls are all adjusted to suit the 
demands of drill and fatigue work, so that the 
men's spare hours may be given to hearing the 
Gospel. 

Last Sunday a pastor of a Tampa church told 
me that his own service and those in all the other 
churches in Tampa had the very smallest congre- 
gations. Their flocks had all gone out to the 
camps to enjoy the novelty of a military sermon. 

One of the volunteer regiments has hired a 
piano and sheltered it in a spare commissary tent. 
Last Sunday night the boys gathered in this 
tent and sang Moody and Sankey hymns till 
tattoo-call. 

It is a positive delight to wander about the 
camps at night after the campfires are lighted. 
The volunteer boys from New York and Massa- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 99 

chusetts gather around these campfires and talk 
of home. 

"Wonder what my mother is doing now?" 

says one. 

"Oh, I would love to see my folks just once 
more before we go," says another. 

"How rough the regulars look!" 

"Yes; we'll look like that before a year is 
over." 

"I'm worried. My sister is ill. Wish I could 
be with her — just a moment." 

Here in the Inn built on stilts, one mile out 
in the waters of Tampa Bay, is more evidence of 
war than at any point in the United States. 
Fully forty steamships — transports to convey our 
"boys in blue" to Cuba— are tied in a row to the 
long wharr. The shores of the bay are dotted 
with the white tents of our artillery, cavalry, and 
infantry. Soldiers, fully armed, tramp up and 
down the long line of ammunition cars, watch- 
ing, always watching. Every soldier not on 
guard duty is busy loading the transports with 
arms, ammunition, rations and equipments. 
Officers crowd the piazzas of the Inn, directing 
the movements of their soldiers. The wives of 
the officers stand by, as if to make the most of 
the last days of their husbands' presence. I 
traveled here from Chickamauga on the First 



100 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Cavalry train. On board was General Joe 
Wheeler and General O. O. Howard. It was a 
curious and a gratifying sight to see these gen- 
erals chumming together as brothers; these men 
who had fought against each other at Chicka- 
mauga in 18G3. Deadly enemies then, the Con- 
federate leader Wheeler and the Union leader 
Howard, are the best of friends now, working, 
and about to begin fighting, for a common cause. 
General Wheeler is here in Tampa to lead their 
cavalry division against the enemy in Cuba. 
General Howard is here on a more peaceful mis- 
sion. He is commingling with the troops as a 
Christian on an errand of Christianity. The 
general is accompanied by Major Whittle, and 
both are members of a Christian Commission 
which will unify, and concentrate all the reli- 
gious work in the United States Army. 

Said General Howard, " Major Whittle and 
myself have come to Tampa with the purpose of 
establishing headquarters here in the interests of 
the Christian Commission, a society similar to 
the one which did such good, practical work 
during our Civil War. We are working in con- 
junction with the Young's Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations which are sending all the tents, Bibles, 
hymn books, tracts, and so on, we can use. I'm 
glad to know TJie Christian Herald is represented. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 101 

I shall go right on to Cuba with the boys." 
Among the troops on the trains going South, "to 
the front," as the boys say, are seen many evi- 
dences of the kindness of the men toward each 
other. On our train carrying the First Cavalry, 
we had forty-five cars, divided into three sec- 
tions — a thousand men and a thousand horses. 
It was very hot, 'especially on the sunny side of 
the car. 

"Here, Bill take this seat. It's shadier. 
We'll take our turn in the sun awhile." 

"No, Jim, I'm comfortable, keep the shade. 
We won't envy you." 

Then we had one sick boy. The rolling of the 
cars, the swinging around the curves made him 
practically seasick. The solicitude of this boy's 
comrades was a lesson in kindness. "Here, boy, 
eat something. 'Twill do you good. Take some 
beans — or will you have some corned-beef?" 

Corned-beef (canned) and beans and hard 
bread — this is the food when traveling. At the 
stations they get coffee — twenty-one cents a day 
being allotted to each man for that healthful 
stimulant. Each soldier is supposed to be hav- 
ing of his rations and to make them last the 
entire journey. Thus they had only two meals 
a d a y — at Atlanta, first stop. Then at Everett, 
Ga., then at Jacksonville, Fla., then at Sanford, 



102 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

which was the last meal before reaching Tampa. 
"What with small rations and broken sleep, the 
men arrived tired, worn out. These journeys are 
hardest of all on the horses. During the thirty- 
six-hour ride from Chickamauga to Tampa the 
horses had not one drop of water and only a small 
quantity of hay. They were packed in the cars 
as tightly as possible so that the kickers could 
not kick and thus injure their fellow-mounts. 
Hundreds of the horses lost as much as eight 
inches girth measure on this single trip. 

One of the most interesting phases of war-life 
at Tampa is the Camp of Detention, which Dr. 
Dudley, formerly assistant sanitary inspector at 
Havana, is establishing at Egmont Key, twenty- 
five miles from here, at the entrance to the Gulf 
of Mexico. I went down with the doctor this 
morning on his tug to see the preparations. 
Egmont Key is a big island, capable of accom- 
modating five thousand men under canvas. As a 
beginning, Dr. Dudley, and his chief, Dr. Get- 
tings, is putting up two hundred tents, with 
room for four men each. Ever}" wounded and 
sick man will be sent out of Cuba to this island. 
Here he will be held for ten days or until he is 
well. Our soldiers wounded on the battlefield 
will have the beet of care. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 103 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

THE NEGRO — THE COOK — THE HORSE THE DOCTOR. 

Here is a chapter of information rather than 
of amusement. While writing about the -various 
departments of Yankee Doodle's Army, it would 
not be fair to overlook those heroes, the negro 
soldiers; those important men in camp-life, the 
cooks ; those noble brutes, the horses ; or those 
patient, hard-worked life-savers, the surgeons. 

The greatest hero in the South at this moment 
is our black Tommy Atkins. Thousands of his 
race fall at his feet and worship him. The civil- 
ian buck stands around and admires the coon 
soldier. The civilian wench falls on the coon 
soldier's neck and embraces him. 

A week ago all these colored heroes were ki 
Chickamauga. Now they are all here, four regi- 
ments— the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, the Twenty- 
fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. They are 
encamped in the sight of the transports which, 
when this is printed, may be conveying them 



104 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE 

to Cuba. For they are aware that they will be 
the first to go. 

Kove among the camps of these colored heroes 
and discover the proof that all coons look alike 
only in song. For here are four thousand coons 
who do not look alike. There are coons of many 
shades : coons with faces as black as licorice, as 
brown as ginger-cake, as 3 r ellow as molasses 
candy. In two respects, however, they may be 
said to look alike. In respect to large, white 
teeth and in respect to stature. Not a man 
under five feet ten — a height one inch above the 
average height of white soldiers. 

To-day General Wade, commanding the army 
of invasion here, reviewed the colored troops. 
The four thousand dusky ones were massed on 
the plain in front of "Wade's headquarters — two 
thousand afoot, two thousand mounted. After 
the review there was maneuvering. The black 
men rode their horses as if born in the saddle. 
The colored bands played — and they played well. 
Perhaps these troops were not so neat, not so 
clean as the white troops; but they were cer- 
tainly fine specimens of physical strength, of 
health, of manhood. General Wade himself 
knew that here were most of the best riders and 
best fighters; and most of the dare-devils in our 
dare devil army of regulars. The maneuvering 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 105 

took the form of a sham battle. It was a drill of 
huge proportions — four regiments drilling as an 
army, as one body. Pickets were thrown out. 
Skirmish lines advanced held an unseen enemy 
in check. The cavalrymen charged upon imag- 
inary foes. There was firing but no bloodshed- 
ding ; fighting without carnage ; all the tricks 
and strategies of a battle without conflict; an en- 
gagement without a foe; a game of solitaire on a 
huge scale. 

General "Wade must have been pleased. For 
he returned to his tent and wired this message 
to Washington: "Colored troops ready for 
action." 

Later, the general reproved one of the visitors 
at headquarters, a "colonel" of Southern volun- 
teers, thus: "Don't sneer at the colored troops. 
When the volunteers begin fighting the Span- 
iards in Cuba, you will probably be very glad to 
have n9gro troops in front of you." This 
reproof was the answer to a remark made by the 
Southerner to the effect that "as long as there is 
a nigger in the army not a dog-gone Southerner 
will enlist." 

The words of the general's visitor only too 
truly sum up the sentiment that prevails among 
narrow-minded Southerners against the "nigger" 
troops. Broad-minded men of the South, of 



10G TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

course, are enlisting in the regular army, hun- 
dreds every day. And they seem glad of this 
opportunity to unite the North and South in the 
ranks of one army. With the ignorant, stay-at- 
home, back-country Southerner, however, things 
are different. They come into Tampa from all 
points in Florida, rush to the recruiting tents, 
catch one glimpse of the * 'nigger" soldiers and 
flee. 

The colored troops are the jolliest of soldiers 
in peace and the very wickedest in battle. They 
go into a fight like so many demons. The lust 
for blood, the spirit of kill or die is upon them. 
Witness the many fights with Indians in the far 
West — at Fort Harrison and at Fort Keogh in 
Montana; at Fort Washakie in W T yoming; at 
Forts Douglas and Duchesne in Utah. In all 
these fights the officers have been very proud of 
their men. 

At posts where there are colored troops there 
is less trouble than at "white posts." On pay- 
day, perhaps, there is more drunkenness among 
the negroes; but ordinarily, their guardhouses 
are all but empty. A colored soldier has a horror 
of any form of punishment. His creed is to 
obey, no matter what the order. 

The cooking for our soldiers in the present 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 10? 

war is done in a combination military oven as 
comprehensive as an entire kitchen outfit. Its 
outside measurement is about four feet in length, 
three feet in width and two feet in depth. Fire 
is put under it on the ground, and when desired, 
on top of it at the same time. It folds up some- 
what like a telescope valise and can be as con- 
veniently hauled about as an ordinary trunk. 
This combination cooking oven contains a skele- 
ton stove or grate stand, an extension stand, a 
large oven in two parts, a cover therefor, two 
baking and roasting spiders, two small frying 
spiders, two lifting hooks, two large combina- 
tion frying, roasting or baking pans, with 
covers, and a set of three large boilers with 
covers to match. In addition to these basic 
articles there come, neatly packed within the 
oven, three sizes of carving or butcher knives, 
one ten-quart mixing pan, one large sieve, one 
three-quart dipper, with a twelve-inch handle ; 
one medium cup ladle, one large spoon with a 
solid twelve-inch handle; an immense three- 
pronged flesh fork, three dredges (one each 
for pepper, salt and flour), one pierced skimmer, 
one graduated scoop, one seamless colander, and 
a "turn over" with a solid handle a foot long. 

This combination arrangement can be used for 
baking, boiling and frying, at the same time, 



108 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

every kind of food in the camp ; and it is supposed 
to be able to cook, at one time, enough for a 
-whole company — one hundred men. 

After a three months' experience in the great 
encampments at Chickamauga and Tampa and 
Camp Alger, lam bound to say that this cooking 
outfit is a blessing. I describe it in all its de- 
tails because it ought to be useful to all who 
mean to "camp out." 

Cooking for an army in the field is much more 
of an undertaking than most people are able to 
appreciate. The field allowance for seventy-five 
men for ten days is: six hundred and fifty 
pounds of beef, one hundred and seventy-five 
pounds of bacon, eight hundred and fifty pounds 
of bread, seven hundred and fifty pounds of pota- 
toes, seventy-five pounds of coffee, one hundred 
pounds of sugar, and one hundred pounds of 

beans. 

Inexperienced soldier cooks rarely realize the 
gain there is in boiling meat rather than frying 
or broiling it. It can be placed over the fire 
hours before it is required, and by simmering, it 
slowly acquires a delicacy and richness not found 
in meats cooked by the ordinary crude camp 
methods. Exception to this, however, may be 
found in the swinging broiler that may be rigged 
with very little trouble. A common toasting 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 109 

rack has the steak placed between the edges, 
securely closed, and from the four corners a bit 
of wire drawn to the middle and twisted. To 
this is tied a long string which is, in turn, fas- 
tened to a pole twelve or fifteen feet long, so set 
that the broiler hangs directly over the fire. A 
common cord will twist and untwist with very 
little momentum, and keeps the meat moving, 
thereby securing much more even cooking than 
is possible in any other way. 

Perhaps the most important article of food in 
army rations is the ordinary bean. And yet 
beans are about the most badly abused vegetable 
vouchsafed by a kind Providence to humanity. 
In camp or in the field they can be one of the 
most delicious of dishes or an indigestible and 
intolerable mess utterly unfit for human con- 
sumption. The imperative need is long and 
thorough cooking. 

Beans, being an important factor in army diet, 
should be given especial attention by cooks. 
When imperfectly cooked beans produce serious 
disorders. They should be soaked over night 
and cooked in the water in which they have been 
standing. It is easy to bake beans in the ashes 
by filling the camp kettle with beans which have 
been thoroughly boiled. With them must be 
boiled the pork. When the beans are put down 



110 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

to bake the pork should be placed so that only 
the rind is above the beans. 

I mention the cooking of beef and beans in 
particular because I found that most all soldier- 
cooks know least about these things. Many a 
soldier makes good coffee, fries potatoes like an 
expert, fries bacon in a way that makes it a deli- 
cious morsel, and bakes bread perfectly — yet this 
same soldier-cook makes a failure of the cooking 
of beef and beans. 

In all the camps now scattered over the country 
the mess tents and cook tents are alike, and all 
use the combination cooking apparatus already 
described. Men detailed as "kitchen police" 
serve the meals prepared by that mcst important 
of all functionaries in the field — the company 
cook. 

The photographs show the two methods 
adopted by the soldier-cooks in using the cook- 
ing apparatus. One way is to dig two deep 
holes in the ground, build fires therein and set 
the pans in on the fire. The other way is the 
ordinary one — that is, a fire on the ground and 
kettles suspended above it. 

Tears streamed down the trooper's face. He 
blubbered. He was the sort known in the regu- 
lar army as "old soldier;" had been eighteen 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. Ill 

years in the service, had killed Apaches and 
grinned at the slaughter. But now he cried. 
Perhaps he had not shed tears for years. But 
just now — it was just at the break of day on the 
13th of June — he was grooming his horse, per- 
haps for the last time. For to-day the expedi- 
tion under General Shafter was to sail for 
Cuba; and the cavalry was to go dismounted, as 
foot soldiers. 

I walked down the picket line, saw other 
troopers with tears in their eyes. It was a 
picket line in the camp of the Sixth Cavalry 
at Port Tampa. The troopers used their 
curry combs and brushes; they scraped and 
rubbed; they polished the coats of their horses 
with their coat-sleeves. They whispered good- 
by, good-by. Some were sullen, others morose, 
all sorrowful. In taking their horses from 
under them Shafter had taken the hearts 
out of their bodies. They wanted to go to Cuba 
and fight; but not without their horses. A 
cavalry officer thinks first of his men, a cavalry- 
man thinks first of his "mount. ' ' These troopers 
of the Sixth could not understand why they were 
ordered forward as foot soldiers after they had 
spent years in drilling to fight on horseback. 
With a score of regular infantry regiments right 
there in Tampa, ready and eager for battle, why 



112 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

separate the troopers and their beloved horses? 
Once in Cuba, however, they understood. Shaf- 
ter was wiser than they had thought. As there 
was no fighting in Cuba in the open, there was 
no chance for cavalry charges. Horses would 
only have been in the way, an incumbrance, an 
unnecessary care. Shafter had really saved their 
horses' lives. Hundreds of "mounts" would 
have died in Cuba, stricken by the heat, if the 
same had not perished on the transports — as 
many did — on the voyage, or while swimming 
ashore at Daiquiri. 

The invading army did not take more than a 
thousand horses. Just enough for the artillery, 
for the commanding officers, for scouts and 
reconnaisance parties, and for general utility. 
Mules did the rest — pack-mules for sup- 
plies and ordinary mules for the few 
"prairie ships" and ambulances. General Miles 
arrived in Santiago, however, horseless. When 
he rode at all he used any horse that offered. 
For General Shafter, however, any old horse 
would not do. The general, three hundred 
weight, with ten pounds to boot, needed a horse 
with strong backbone. He took two of these, 
fine, big brutes whose strength the general had 
tested in Tampa while inspecting the divisions 
of the Fifth Army Corps. Colonel John Jacob 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 113 

Astor was allowed two mounts, for the course of 
his duties as acting assistant inspector-general 
involved distances. He himself led his horses 
aboard the transport Siguranca, two of the finest 
thoroughbreds out of his stables at Rhineclifd-on- 
the-Hudson. 

The personnel of the medical and hospital 
department of an army corps consists of one hun- 
dred medical officers, one hundred hospital 
stewards, twenty-five acting hospital stewards 
and eight hundred privates. This list of medi- 
cal officers includes the corps, division, brigade 
and regimental surgeons. There is allowed to a 
corps, one chief surgeon with the rank of lieuten- 
ant-colonel, three chief surgeons of divisions, 
each of whom have the rank of major, nine 
brigade surgeons with the rank of major, and 
ninety regimental surgeons with the rank of 
major and first lieutenant. 

In each corps are three division hospitals, each 
of which has a capacity of two hundred cots, 
beside one corps reserve hospital of the same 
size, which makes a total of eight hundred beds 
in all, for the thirty thousand men comprising 
the corps. These hospitals are supposed only to 
take care of the serious cases, or those requiring 
hospital treatment. The large proportion of the 



114 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

sick and wounded, minor ailments and slight in- 
juries are treated in the regiment as in quarters. 
These men are ambulatory patients, can attend 
sick call themselves, are not confined to bed, and 
can go up to the regimental surgeon's medical 
tent and receive daily treatment, very much like 
patients in an out-of-door clinic. From twenty 
to thirty cases are treated in quarters daily in 
this manner in each regiment. Of course, this 
is a much larger percentage than is necessary in 
ordinary times. A division hospital ought not 
to contain more than one hundred to one hundred 
and twenty-five patients daily, which would leave 
from seventy-five to one hundred cots empty for 
new cases. 

The division hospital consists of thirty-four 
hospital tents, which are fourteen and one-half 
feet by sixteen and one-half, and contains a capac- 
ity for six cots. These cots are folding, made 
of wood and covered with canvas, are wide and 
very comfortable for the sick. The patient 
usually takes takes his blanket along to the hos- 
pital, which folded, is placed upon the canvas 
bottom over which is placed a clean sheet. This 
makes a very comfortable bed indeed. The 
soldier is also furnished with a pillow and a 
blanket or two and an additional sheet. The 
reserve hospital is equipped in the same manner. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 115 

The staff of these division hospitals is com- 
posed of medical officers assigned to duty from 
the various regiments serving in the division, 
and sometimes some of the brigade surgeons are 
also detailed to the hospital if specially talented 
men in surgery or other specialties. The nurs- 
ing is done by the privates who belong to the 
hospital corps, and by the hospital stewards that 
are detailed from the regiments, and hospital 
stewards that belong to the regular United States 
Hospital Corps, and acting hospital stewards 
belonging also to the regular army corps. About 
one hundred and twenty-five privates, seven 
hospital stewards and five acting hospital 
stewards are allowed to each division hospital. 
These privates are selected on account of special 
fitness, and are transferred from the regiments to 
the United States Hospital Corps. They consist 
of men who have studied medicine, some of them 
are physicians, many students of medicine, 
trained nurses, druggists, dentists and others 
who have had considerable to do with the treat- 
ment of disease and the care of the sick. In 
addition to the three division hospitals and the 
reserve corps hospital, there are three ambulance 
companies and one reserve corps ambulance com- 
pany. These companies consist of one hundred 
and four privates each, seven hospital stewards, 



116 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

three acting hospital stewards, commanded by- 
one medical officer who has two medical officers 
to assist him. These ambulance companies are 
intended to carry off the wounded from the field 
of battle, to assist in the first aids, prepare the 
wounded for transportation, put on temporary 
dressings, and to accompany the ambulance 
trains. These men are picked men of intelli- 
gence who are specially adapted for this work; 
they are drilled twice daily in the United States 
ambulance and litter drills, are given regular 
instructions in first aids, in the treatment of 
emergencies and resuscitation of the drowning 
and treatment of poisonous insect bites and 
venomous reptiles, and in all instructions which 
are necessary to the care of the sick and wounded 
during times of emergency. They have a uni- 
form similar to the line, except the facings are 
green. They also have a white duck uniform 
and wear upon the left arm a white brassard with 
the red cross. 

In addition to the three division hospitals and 
corps reserve hospitals and three division ambu- 
lance companies and the corps reserve ambulance 
company, we have about ninety ambulances, as 
provided by the government, sixty army wagons, 
forty-five escort wagons, eight hundred mules 
and two hundred horses. The ambulances are 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 117 

intended to accompany the regiments on the 
march and pick the wounded up as they may fall 
out; serve around the camp, carry the sick from 
the regiment to the division hospital, and any 
other use they may be called upon. The escort 
wagons are intended to haul along with the army 
the hospital tents, and the tents of the men, 
and must be provided, of course, with the 
necessary animals and drivers. All of these 
ambulances, wagons, mules, horses and tents are 
invoiced to the medical officers, who are held re- 
sponsible for them by the United States govern- 
ment, and, in fact, the entire medical depart- 
ment of the army corps is almost an independent 
organization, and works independently of the 
brigades and divisions. 

The feeding of the soldier is done by the draw- 
ing of a, ration. Each soldier, whether he is sick 
or well, is entitled to so much flour, meat, sugar, 
coffee, vinegar, and vegetables. The medical 
officer who is running the division hospital or 
the ambulance company draws every ten days 
from the commissary, rations for each man who 
is serving in his command. A part of these 
rations by careful handling can be saved and dis- 
posed of, which makes quite a little fund, and is 
known as. the hospital or ambulance company 
fund. The money saved from the rations of the 



118 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

soldiers can be used to furnish luxuries and other 
delicacies which are not issued by the govern- 
ment as part of the ration. 

The method of placing men upon the sick list 
is very simple. Every morning the first sergeant 
takes a list of the men sick upon the company's 
sick report to the regimental surgeon's office, 
which is usually a tent prepared and equipped 
with a place for examination of his men, his 
desk, medical supplies, medical chests, etc. 
They are here examined by the surgeon and dis- 
posed of, as transferred to the hospital, to quar- 
ters, or sent back for duty. The ambulance 
comes along after sick call, and takes off the sick 
to the division hospital where they are cared for 
until they are well or otherwise disposed of. In 
case a man becomes permanently injured and 
unfit for service, or is convalescent from serious 
illness the government has established large 
general hospitals in the cities of the North, one 
at Atlanta, one at Newport, Kentucky, one at 
Fort Myers, Virginia, and the old Hygeia Hotel, 
I understand, is also obtained for that purpose. 
The chief surgeon of the corps telegraphs the 
surgeon-general of the army that so manj r 
patients requiring general hospital treatment are 
on his hands, and requests that the railroad hos- 
pital be sent for their conveyance. These men 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 110 

are usually sent away in groups of from ten to 
thirty at a time. In these general hospitals they 
are looked after and eventually disposed of either 
by discharge, return to their regiment or death. 
At present about three hundred of the wounded 
at Santiago have been sent to the hospitals in 
Atlanta, Georgia, and farther north. 

The railroad hospital consists of eight or ten 
Pullmans that have been specially fitted up with 
berths, and are able to accommodate from twenty 
to thirty men to a car. These berths are super- 
imposed, provided with medical officers, hospital 
stewards and privates who have on the car appli- 
ances for cooking, bathing, electric lights, fans, 
and a complete medical supply. This car is kept 
either in Atlanta or at one of the large general 
hospitals, where it is constantly ready for the 
journey which begins as soon as a telegram is 
sent from the surgeon-general of the army order- 
ing it to proceed to such a point and bring back 
the wounded. In these large camps of instruc- 
tion, which are the headquarters of a corps, there 
are many cases of convalescents from typhoid 
fever, pneumonia, fractures, and wounds who 
will take one or two months to recover. Instead 
of allowing these men to remain in the division 
hospital, the surgeon in charge has them exam- 
ined and submits a list to the chief surgeon of 



120 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

the corps who recommends that so many of them 
be transferred to these general hospitals in the 
cities of the North. In this way all the serious 
and convalescent cases are disposed of. In case 
the corps would get orders to move away, these 
cases that are not able to travel are turned over 
to the corps reserve hospital or provisional 
hospital arranged by the chief surgeon of the 
corps, and only the well go. As soon as these 
men recover, they follow their command, and in 
case some of them become chronic cases they are 
discharged on certificates of disability, or sent to 
the general hospitals, as indicated above. 



YANKEE DOODLE 

IN 

CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 123 



PART II. 



Yankee Doodle in Cuba and Porto 

Eico. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE MISERY OUR ARMY FOUND IN CUBA. 

Day after day for the past three years the 
illustrated press has devoted much of its space 
in depicting the misery in Cuba, where, outside 
of the fatalities of war, fully one hundred thou- 
sand people have starved through Spanish 
cruelty. 

Three years ago Cuba had hardly a baker's 
dozen of professional beggars. As far as eye 
could reach the country lay divided into fertile 
acres, each acre representing a household, living, 
if not in luxury, at least in prosperity. There 
was practically no want in Cuba; even its beg- 
gars did riot feel the pinch of poverty. 



124 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

To-day Cuba presents a picture so appalling 
that even the nations — who, like corporations, 
are supposed to be without souls — are roused to 
indignation and protest. The fertile fields are 
laid waste, the homes destroyed, and the 
wretched reconcentrados housed in the coast 
cities to die by thousands and tens of thousands 
and debarred from every occupation but beggary. 
After the inhuman edict of Weyler had gone 
forth, it is calculated that two hundred and fifty 
thousand pacificos were driven from. their planta- 
tions into Havana, Santiago, Puerto Principe, 
and other cities of Eastern Cuba. Since that 
time they have subsisted upon the charity sent 
to them, mainly from America. The picture of 
this helpless army of human beings, men, 
women, and children, snatched from comfortable 
homes, sinking from one stage of starvation to 
auother, is too horrible to dwell upon. But it 
exists with ominous realism, and it is computed 
that fully one hundred thousand reconcentrados 
have literally starved to death. 

The tragedy of the situation is increased by 
the utter helplessness of the unfortunate victims. 
Packed into the city like a horde of human 
insects, crouching under the miserable cabins 
that have been constructed by the more cour- 
ageous to hide their misery, they are completely 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 125 

at the mercy of the Spanish soldier, who bears 
thein a venomous hatred, ili-concealed. 

Of the atrocities perpetrated upon the few who 
had the courage to ignore the edict and remain 
in their homes, it is needless to dilate. Old and 
young were brutally murdered, tortured, and 
even burned to death; children were slain in 
their mothers' arms; a father was spared to be 
forced to gaze in agony upon the slow tortures 
and final death throes of his son; young girls 
were subject to treatment from brutal soldiers 
which made death a happy alternative; and con- 
vents were invaded, and neither the calling of- 
the nuns nor their appeals in the name of reli- 
gion availed to exempt them from the barbarous 
outrages of their captors. 

The reconcentrados come, so to speak, from 
the centre of the island, the eastern side of which 
is held by the insurgents, who for three years 
have been fighting with heroism for the freedom 
of Cuba. 

Since Weyler openly announced his policy to 
be a war of extermination, the fighting Cubans 
realize that it is now war to death. Every fresh 
advantage they win on their side of the island is 
visited with fresh horrors upon the helpless 
reconcentrados. And the advent of Blanco has 
not in any considerable degree bettered their 



126 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

condition. Even a real armistice, during the 
Spanish occupation, would be of little practical 
benefit to relieve the frightful state of affairs. It 
•would be at least two months before a crop 
could be raised under the most favorable circum- 
stances, and the reconcentrados are in such a 
mental and physical condition of debility that 
they are, practically speaking, too wretched to 
labor. 

Numerous relief expeditions have been organ- 
ized from this country, and large sums of money 
have been sent, but it has long been suspected 
that the very money sent for the mitigation of 
the existing evils served only to aggravate 
them. 

Recently relief stations have been established 
and American supplies have been given out by 
American officers; and in this way only has it 
been possible to feel certain of an honest dis- 
tribution of supplies forwarded to Cuba from 
this country. 

What the position of the reconcentrados must 
be at this time of writing, when the American 
relief stations have been closed, is beyond 
imagination, for the hatred of the Spaniards for 
the Cuban has gone beyond the pale of ordinary 
warfare and has entered into a realm of atrocities. 

The prompt return of Clara Barton with her 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 127 

corps of trained nurses, who went out to person- 
ally superintend the distribution of relief sup- 
plies, was a tacit recognition on her part of the 
unsafe condition of the country, even for those 
wearing the badge of the Eed Cross Society. 



128 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTEK XVI. 

AN IMPORTANT BIT OF HISTORY. 

By the time this reaches New York the starva- 
tion in Cuba will be at an end. Three special 
trains loaded with two hundred tons of provi- 
sions — cornmeal, bacon and salt — left Havana 
at four o'clock this morning. One train goes 
east, the second west, the third south. In a few 
days food will be distributed to the two hun- 
dred and five thousand reconcentrados through- 
out Cuba's four hundred and two famished 
towns. 

The entire credit of this gigantic relief work 
belongs to Dr. Luis Klop«ch. Through Dr. 
Klopsch's efforts the necessary money has been 
contributed, and by his personal energy here in 
Havana the machinery of distribution has been 
started. Miss Clara Barton, to whom Dr. 
Klopsch guaranteed the sum of ten thousand 
dollars for three months for ■ relief work, retired 
from Cuba because the Bed Cross Society, under 
her generalship, was utterly incapable of coping 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 129 

with the situation. So gigantic was the problem 
that Miss Barton was dazed and bewildered. 
With ten thousand dollars in her basket, Miss 
Barton spent several weeks looking over the 
field, planning, and eating dinners given in her 
honor. In Havana and Matanzas, the Red Cross 
Society, by its slow and ineffectual methods, 
gained for itself the name: "Bed Tape Society." 

Upon his arrival here Dr. Klopsch found that 
the society had accomplished comparatively 
nothing. He learned that food was being sent 
first to a town here, then to a town there, while 
at the same time people were dying in all the re- 
maining towns. The society agent in ten days, 
had investigated, not fed, five towns. Having 
discovered that half the population was dead, the 
agent then forwarded a small quantity of food. 
If the society had been left alone in the field, 
the towns as far east as Santiago would have had 
relief some time during next year. 

Dr. Klopsch, however, perceived that to save 
the reconcentrados, not one town nor yet five, 
but the whole of Cuba must be fed at the same 
time — and at once. He made his plans and has 
executed them successfully. With the three 
special trains which left Havana this morning 
Dr. Klopsch has established the most gigantic 
system of organized charity that has ever been 
attempted. 



130 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

With a huge map of Cuba spread out before 
ns, Dr. Klopsch said to me: 

"On my arrival in Cuba I immediately tele- 
graphed to the consul, consular agent, or alcalde 
in every town in the island. I asked for an im- 
mediate answer by telegraph, stating exactly the 
number of needy reconcentrados in their respec- 
tive towns. According to the answers received 
I learned that in the four hundred and two 
towns, there were two hundred and five thousand 
starving reconcentrados. And upon this basis I 
begin the work of life-saving. 

"In the storehouse were two hundred tons of 
provisions — cornmeal, bacon and salt. I deter- 
mined that these two hundred tons must go out 
at once. But at first it was necessary to know 
what quantity to send to each town. So I mailed 
the following circular to the alcalde of each of 
the towns. The questions were printed in both 
Spanish and English. 

"Please answer these questions and return in 
inclosed self-addressed and prepaid envelope 
within twenty-four hours of receipt by you. 

"Name of Province . 

"Name of town . 



"Name of mayor . 

"How many inhabitants not country reconcen- 
trados? 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 131 

9 

"How many reconcentrados? 

"How many destitute people of all classes? 

"Of these how many are sick? 

"What method of distribution of relief will 
you adopt? 

"Are there American residents in your town? 

"Please name a few. 

"What persons will be willing and competent 
to form a committeee for the distribution of 
American relief? 

"What small towns in the neighborhood are 
dependent for relief on your town? 

"Answer in English, if convenient. 
(Signed) American Central Relief Committee." 

"Within thirty-six hours all the answers were 
in. From these I discovered that out of the two 
hundred and five thousand reconcentrados, one 
half were not in such bad condition as to need 
immediate relief. I therefore apportioned out 
the two hundred tons in such a way that every 
needy reconcentrado would receive half a pound 
of cornmeal, half a pound of bacon per day, for 
eight days. This morning at four o'clock three 
trains (twenty -three cars in all) left Havana, one 
going east, the second south, and the third west. 
Thus every hungry person in Cuba, will, by the 
first of April, be supplied with enough cornmeal, 
bacon and salt to keep them alive until a second 
shipment can be made. The alcalde of each 



132 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

town has been asked to write at once regarding 
the condition of his town, and upon the answers 
will depend the amount of supplies sent in the 
second shipment. 

"To provide for second shipment we have now 
on the way here, one thousand and eight-five 
tons of provisions, or enough to provision the 
reconcentrados for thirty days. In other words 
there is food enough in sight to care for every 
needy person on the island till May 1st. 

"Meanwhile a vessel is now loading in New 
York with fifteen hundred more tons of provisions. 
Upon my return to New York I shall again sail 
for Cuba in this vessel, and see to the distribu- 
tion of the fifteen hundred tons. And thus are 
all the necessities of the reconcentrados provided 
for up to June 1st. 

"Now, as to Havana. Heretofore, the city's 
reconcentrados have been supplied by twelve 
relief stations which were opened for three hours 
on Sunday. Under this state of affairs any per- 
son found destitute on Monday, or any one who 
happened to reach the station five minutes late 
would have to wait seven whole days before 
receiving relief. In other words, the relief thus 
afforded was only a farce. For twenty-five thou- 
sand people could not possibly be fed in three 
hours. Now, however, I have established a cen- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 133 

tral relief station, at No. 14 Estrella Street, 
which is opened every day from 7 a. m. to 6 
p. m. From this station alone we are sup- 
plying two thousand people a day, or fourteen 
thousand each week. We have the work so well 
systematized that it runs like clock-work. In 
addition to the central station we have opened 
four others at each of the four corners of the 
city, all open all day, at which we feed the remain- 
ing eleven thousand reconcentrados in Havana. 

"Morever, we have opened, in San Lazario 
Street, a kitchen built expressly for our purposes. 
Here we cook proper meals for the indigent sick. 
And here we feed two thousand per day. Here 
mothers and babies receive the right kind of 
milk, and here canned beef tea and other nutri- 
tious foods are given to invalids. 

"In addition to all this we have given the con- 
suls of the big cities a cash fund for the use of 
silent sufferers; that is, for those who, only one 
year ago were wealthy and influential, but who 
are now ruined. There are people who, too 
proud to speak, have pawned everything they 
owned and are simply dying in proud silence. 
Such funds have been established in Havana, 
Matanzas, Sagua, Manzanillo, Trinidad and 
Santiago. 

"By these various means, the whole island of 



134 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Cuba is being effectually cared for, and the gen- 
erous contributions of the American people dis- 
tributed exactly in accord with the intentions of 
the donors. 

"The expense of thus supplying two hundred 
and five thousand reconcentrados in four hun- 
dred and two towns amounts to fifteen thousand 
dollars a week. As long as the American people 
will contribute that amount weekly, so long will 
the work of feeding starving Cuba go on." 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 135 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AS WE FOUND QUAINT OLD SANTIAGO. 

Santiago is Cuba's Key West. It is at the ex- 
treme eastern end of the island, and as it is prac- 
tically in the hands of the Cubans, we may send 
troops there to drive out the Spanish. It is 
Cuba's third city in size and importance- 
Havana being first and Matanzas second. 

It is the archbishop s residence, and to it 
people flock from all parts of the island during 
certain religious festivals, which are celebrated 
with remarkable pomp and ceremony. It is also 
the terminus of two railway lines, one of which 
is the outlet of Lomas de Cobre, the famous 
copper mines three leagues inland; the other, 
passing through the richest sugar district, affords 
transportation for that great staple. In peaceful 
times the exports of the port reach the handsome 
annual aggregate of eight million dollars— three- 
fourths of which is sugar, the rest cocoa, rum, 
tobacco, honey, and mahogany. 

According to the best accounts, Santiago is 



136 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

the most unhealthy place in Cuba. Hemmed in 
by mountains, with all its filth festering in the 
sun, the surprise is not that yellow fever makes an 
annual visit and carries off many victims, but 
that it does not remain the year round. A more 
favorable field for the study of human anatomy 
could hardly be found than Santiago de Cuba, 
where "living pictures" abound in the streets, 
it being thought here that drapery of any sort, 
for boys and girls of the lower classes under ten 
years of age is entirely superfluous. 

AVhen the rains descend, the almost perpendic- 
ular alleys known as streets are sometimes filled 
with torrents of such impetuosity that no one can 
cross them on foot, and even horsemen hesitate. 
The city might easily have an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of pure cold water, if only there was sufficient 
enterprise among the citizens to cause it to be 
brought in pipes from the neighboring heights. 
But Santiago remains wretchedly deficient in 
this respect, though there is much suffering 
from lack of this prime necessity. 

Arrived at our hotel, an unexpected barrier 
confronted us at the entrance — nothing less than 
a saddle horse tethered to the doorpost and 
occupying the greater portion of the little stone 
porch that fronts the casa. This is a "costum- 
bre" of the country, so common that nobody 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 137 

thinks anything about it. If a Santiagoan pays 
you a visit he generally comes on horseback, 
and, quite as a matter of course, he rides his 
steed up on the front porch and ties it with its 
nose to the door, where it stands pawing and 
blocking the entrance until the owner chooses to 
depart. 

Of course, we called first at the American con- 
sulate. The consul's house, which is a fair 
sample of the majority of the better class of resi- 
dences in Santiago, looks as if it had been built 
to stand a thousand years, and had already 
weathered half that period, with its three-foot 
walls cemented hard as marble outside and in, sit 
solid rafters set close together, and its foot- 
square window frames and doorposts run down 
into the ground ten feet or more. The frequency 
of earthquakes and hurricanes soon taught early 
builders the necessity of this substantial fashion. 
As in Havana, the shop fronts are all open, and 
inside we see clerks in their shirt sleeves, guilt- 
less of vests and collars, coquetting with mulatto 
girls over gay calico prints and woollens. Ladies 
of the aristocracy never visit the stores, but do 
their shopping Jby proxy, through the servants, 
or from samples brought around by the mer- 
chants. 

Fat and comfortable negresses, with enormous 



138 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

earrings and turbans of indescribable gorgeous- 
ness, beside which Jacob's coat would be a color- 
less affair, squat on the ground at the street 
corners, with baskets of dulce, fruits, and boiled 
yams to sell. 

The town is indifferently lighted with gas by 
a failing company, which daily threatens to sus- 
pend business because not paid according to con- 
tract by the easy-going municipality. There are 
almost no vehicles to be seen in the streets, yet 
you are kept in perpetual heartache by the 
wretched condition of the beasts of burden, stag- 
gering unshod up the steep hills under heavy 
loads, every rib to be counted as far off as you 
can see them, blows and abuse their only por- 
tion; for in Cuba, as in Spain, animals are the 
recipients of the most cruel treatment. 

The decription given by a traveler who has 
lived some time in Santiago is better than could 
be written by one who simply spent the night 
there. The traveler I refer to is Fanny B. Ward. 
Said she: 

"A brief visit will not give the traveler an 
adequate idea of Santiago. The first impression 
gained from its tumble-down buildings, many of 
which appear just ready to topple over and crush 
you, and its rough, neglected streets, abounding 
in filth, naked babies, lean curs, and frightfully- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 139 

abused mules and horses, is by no means favor- 
able, even to lovers of the quaint and venerable. 
But after you become acquainted with it and its 
hospitable people, and have seen the interiors of 
some of its antique casas, that were built a hun- 
dred years before the first Dutchman had set up 
a house on New York island, then you find your- 
self in love with the rare old place, despite its 
many shortcomings. 

"The finest mansions are confined to no partic- 
ular locality, but are as likely to be found next 
to negro shanties, or sandwiched in among com- 
mercial warehouses, as anywhere else. They are 
of the order of architecture which the Moors 
brought into the Iberian peninsula — low and 
large, with enormous windows reaching from roof 
to pavement, and having iron bars before them, 
tiled or marble floors, and an inner courtyard, 
with limes and pomegranates growing around its 
central fountain. 

"Dirty and toilsome though they are, the 
streets of Santiago never fail to interest; they 
have curious signs stretched across them, or pro- 
truding over the narrow sidewalks, and the com- 
modities exposed for sale are, to us, strange. 

"Landing at the wharf, you are instantly beset 
by the drivers of the three or four volantes and 
as many victorias that comprise the entire wheel 



140 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

transit of Santiago, for the steep streets are so 
atrociously bad that everybody 'rides afoot or on 
horseback,' and even the heaviest merchandise is 
transported on the backs of mules and ponies. 
It is well to remember, whenever you may be in 
Spanish America, that a bargain should be fully 
understood before getting into any public vehi- 
cle, although the tariff thereon, usually con- 
trolled by municipal regulation, is printed on a 
card and posted inside. The drivers consider a 
day's labor utterly lost when they get only regu- 
lar pay, and, even after a bargain has been made, 
they do not want to stick to it, but will bully or 
wheedle you out of more than the sum agreed 
upon if they can, gracefully dropping from dol- 
lars to cents in their extortion, if you prove a 
sophisticated customer. 

"We desired to go first to the American con- 
sulate, a drive of less than ten minutes from the 
landing, and, thinking to avoid future contro- 
versy, we selected the most innocent-looking 
Jehu of the lot, saw that his legalized tariff was 
seventy-five cents an hour, and offered him a 
dollar for the ten minutes' service. But, when 
we alighted and proffered him the dollar, the 
man refused it with the greatest indignation. 

" 'Dos pesos, senoras! Dos pesos, nada 
manos!' (two dollars, ladies, nothing less), he 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 141 

shouted. Being reminded of the bargain and 
that it was much more than his rightful fare, he 
waxed loudly vehement, swinging his arms and 
rolling his eyes as in a fit, and calling upon all 
the saints in the calendar to defend him from 
fraudulent foreigners. 

" 'Senoras, ' he said, 'did you not ask me 
where is the American Consulate? What is this 
building and this? Did I not bestow upon you, 
senoras, much valuable information? Body of 
Christ? shall I be guide and city directory, as 
well as cochere, all for a paltiy peso?' 

"Placing the dollar upon the carriage-seat, we 
turned to go; whereupon he changed his tactics 
to humble supplication, and besought us, by the 
beard of San Jago, by the love of the Virgin, by 
the heart of Our Mother, to make it a dollar and 
a half. 

" 'Distinguished strangers, condescend to add 
dos reales (twenty-five cents). Beautiful young 
ladies, only ten cents more.' But, finding us 
quite immovable, he suddenly showed all his 
white teeth in a good-natured grin, took off his 
battered hat, and bade us 'Buenos dias,' with 
the grace of a Chesterfield, and rattled away, 
doubtless hoping for better success with the next 
verdant 'gringo.' " 

It is difficult to say how the forty-five thousand 



142 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

people of Santiago manage to make a living, for 
few of them appear to be doing anything. The 
onl3 r industrial establishments of the place are a 
few sugar factories, a tanj'ard, founds, and a 
soap factor}'. Historically, it is memorable 
mainly for the French occupation and ransom in 
1553, and the affair of the Virginius, which 
occurred twenty years ago and resulted in the 
Spanish government paying an indemnity to the 
United States for the murder of Captain Fry and 
his companions. 

Santiago has also been the seat of most of 
Cuba's modern rebellions against the arbitrary 
and bitterly oppressive rule of the home govern- 
ment; and a long line of patriots, shot on the 
ramparts of Morro Castle overhanging the har- 
bor, have furnished food for the waiting sharks. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 143 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PORTO RICO AS THE YANKEES FOUND IT. 

"When I left San Juan, Porto Rico, last April, 
the last words the chief aid-de-camp of General 
Masias said to me were: "No fighting, no war.'' 
Since then, however, San Juan has been bom- 
barded by our warships, and now it is to be in- 
vaded and captured by our army. Meanwhile I 
wonder what that peace-loviug aid-de-camp is 
doing. 

The island of Porto Rico, the second of the 
Pearls of the Antilles, is one of the loveliest on 
earth. As it is ouly a few day's sail from New 
York, it may become a famous winter resort. 
The climate is not unlike that of New York in 
July, and an agreeable peculiarity of it is that 
strangers are quickly and easily acclimated. 
Though the island is nearer the equator than 
Hawaii, this climatic agreeableness has brought 
to Porto Rico people of northern nations, who 
have shunned the Pacific islands — Germans, 
Russians, Swedes, French, and Danes being 



144 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

among the twenty-five thousand foreign popula- 
tion which thrives and prospers there. These 
foreigners are found principally in San Juan — 
w r hich is to be our first point of attack — on the 
northeast coast, and in San German, a town 
larger than San Juan, the capital. 

San Juan is of more than ordinary interest, as 
it is probably the best example of a Spanish city 
in the new world. The architecture is largely of 
the hybrid type which is known as Hispano- 
Moorish, in which sunlight and fresh air are ex- 
cluded from buildings by using narrow windows 
and small doorways. The houses in the city have 
handsome iron balconies, and those in the sub- 
urbs are set in very pretty gardens. The city 
itself is built on what w r as formerly a series of 
hilly islands, coral reefs, and lowlands some- 
times submerged in stormy weather. It is con- 
nected with the mainland by a long peninsula, 
and with the island proper by a railway bridge. 
It is the neatest city in Spanish America. 
Within the harbor are a square-turreted, little 
stone battery and a liliputian fort oddly pictur- 
esque, but practically insignificant. On a high 
point of land, within the castle walls, stands a 
tall lighthouse. This is the real gateway to the 
island. 

Ponce de Leon is buried here. His dust is 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 145 

inclosed in a box that is awaiting interment 
beneath a proposed monument. Perhaps the 
most noted building in the city is the Casa Blanca 
(white house) that De Leon 5 bfeft Wr*' nimself in 
I ^.2$? 15097 and which he- occupied during his long 
term as governor. This is now the governor- 
general's palace. It is a good type of the 
municipal architecture of Madrid. The cathe- 
dral is rather a handsome building. There are a 
gloomy, but attractive, convent, one or two pic- 
turesque gates, and a number of large and mas- 
sive houses built in the olden time, when the 
place was frequented by Spanish warships and 
galleons. 

Some of the streets are paved in a curious 
fashion. Wedge-shaped stones are driven into the 
earth of the roadway, and afterward hammered 
by heavy paviors until they form a smooth and 
rather concave surface. This conflicts with our 
ideas of paving, the intent being to use the cen- 
tre of the street, instead of its sides, as a gutter 
for water during heavy rains. 

Like Cuba, Porto Rico is overrun with Spanish 
soldiers. Every officer, private, petty official, 
and custom-house inspector is imported from 
Spain, and the island must support them. But 
the people are unalterably opposed to all things 
Spanish. They have a good reason to hate their 
oppressors, and hate them they do, heartily. 



146 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

The productive class of the population, the 
small landholders and laborers, are of very old 
Spanish stock, which was mixed centuries ago 
with the native Indian blood. This class, called 
Gibaros, are peaceful, contented, and, as the 
virtue is measured in Porto Eico, industrious. 
They are the farmers and herders, and are con- 
tent to pack their product to market or mill on 
muleback; and it is well it is so, for the major- 
ity of them have only mule paths by which to 
reach market. 

The monetary unit on the island is the silver 
peso — not to be confused with the much less 
reliable peseta— and is worth about ninety-two 
cents in our currency. 

Puerto Eico, or Porto Eico, as it is generally 
spelled, is the smallest and most easterly of the 
Antilles, and has an area, including its depend- 
encies (the islands of Vieque, Culebra, and 
Mona) of thirty -five hundred square miles, with a 
population of about nine hundred thousand, of 
which three hundred and fifty thousand are 
white. The island is nearly rectangular in shape, 
with a length, east and west, of about one hun- 
dred miles, and a breadth of forty. 

While in this island I saw very few birds or 
flowers. But I did see a great number of pretty 
girls, especially in San Juan. I heard a story 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 147 

about a girl of San Juan, Pauline Masias, the 
daughter of the captain-general, who went out 
into the streets of the capital and tried to rouse 
her countrymen to the defence of their city. If 
true, this was in contravention of the Spanish 
code of conventionalities. Karely does a Castil- 
ian Joan d'Arc venture out to lead Spanish 
troops; for, no matter how much her service 
should be valued, her act would surely be mis- 
construed. Whatever freedom the future may 
bring to Porto Rico and to the women of San 
Juan, at present they are hedged about with the 
strongest chains of custom. They do not often 
venture out of doors unattended, and, like the 
Moorish women, they visit oftener the cemetery 
than the picnic ground. 

Not a gunshot from the great Morro of San 
Juan, in the center of the city, you will find the 
central plaza. During the day it is hot and 
vacant; at night, cool and populous. When the 
music begins at eight in the evening, out from 
their prison dwellings troop the fair ladies of 
San Juan. Some are blond, most are brunette. 
All, as seen in the dim light of the flickering 
lamps, are beautiful. All carry fans, which 
remind one of the flutter of butterflies' wings as 
they flit and start, half opening and shutting, as 
if about to balance themselves on a bed of flowers. 



148 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

These girls are bareheaded but for the graceful 
mantilla, which often hangs across their bare 
shoulders instead of adorning their tresses. The 
ladies appear by themselves, in groups, or, if 
they have male escorts, are invariably accompan- 
ied by a duenna, who was young so long ago that 
she has forgotten all about it, and who keeps the 
sharpest watch over her young charge. 

For two hours the people revel in the music 
of the band from Cadiz, and, when the musicians 
have started for their barracks with that light, 
swinging pace peculiar to the Spanish infantry, 
then the ladies, with ill-concealed disappoint- 
ment, return to the seclusion of their dwellings, 
while the men disperse to the cafes to smoke and 
chat. This the men do every night, concert or 
no concert, but the ladies do not appear again 
until the next "retreta," unless to go shopping 
some forenoon under rigid surveillance. 

Spaniards say that there is no fighting in Porto 
Rico between their soldiers and the insurgents. 
Yet until lately the landing in San Juan of a 
thousand soldiers, fresh from the provinces of 
Spain, was no infrequent occurrence. One even- 
ing I witnessed the looting of a store near the 
cemetery. A score of mounted rebels dashed 
out of the bushes, swept past the Spanish out- 
pickets, who were too astonished to shoot, and 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 149 

swooped down upon the store in question. As 
the store was kept by a Spaniard, the ransacking 
was done according to the laws of w r ar. In less 
than fifteen minutes the store was a wreck and 
the building afire. All that they could not carry 
with them the insurgents destroyed and threw 
into the road. Theu, just to show that there was 
no ill-feeling, they tied the proprietor to a tree, 
fired several shots skyward, and dashed back to 
the hills. And all this within one hour, 03" car- 
riage, from the heart of San Juan. The raid was 
like one of those which outlaws make upon 
saloons in Arizona, except that in this Porto Rico 
raid there was no bloodshed — only a badly 
frightened Spaniard. 

Another evening the insurgents made an attack 
upon a dinner party. A number of Spanish 
officers were assembled to welcome the wife and 
daughter of one of their number, on their arrival 
in San Juan. Dinner was served on the roof of 
a house on the outskirts of the city — not an 
unusual thing in Porto Rico. To enhance the 
beaut3 r of the scene, there were awnings and a 
draping of Spanish colors. Many lanterns and 
lamps were hung about. No better target could 
have been furnished for a sharpshooting enemy. 
Suddenly, from a range of hills, came a storm of 
bullets. They scattered among the dinner party, 



150 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

smashing bottles, glasses, and plates. All fled 
in terror from the roof, leaving one man dead 
and taking with them another, badly wounded, 
whose life was despaired of. 

These two events, as far as San Juan was con- 
cerned, were summed up in three-line paragraphs 
in the local newspaper. A third event, how- 
ever, created a miniature panic. Having had 
fort3 T Spanish soldiers killed and sixty wounded 
in an engagement just outside the city, the 
people of San Juan believed that the insurgents 
might dash into the very heart of the city itself. 
The so-called engagement began at daybreak, 
and lasted two hours. A battalion of Spanish 
infantry, on its way to an outpost with supplies, 
was suddenly fired upon. The attack seemed to 
come from all points of the compass. A square 
was formed. The Spanish fired at random. 
Not a rebel could be seen, yet every moment a 
soldier of Spain fell, dead or wounded. Pres- 
ently the shots of the enemy seemed to come from 
the treetops. Whereupon the Spaniards raised 
their aim from the bushes, and fired into the 
trees. Still no sign of the enemy. At last the 
firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Then 
the Spaniards buried their dead, picked up their 
w T ounded, and marched back to San Juan, a bat- 
talion forlorn and bewildered. So do the patriots 
in Porto Eico show their rebellious spirit. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 151 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MATANZAS SECOND CITY OF CUBA AS WE FOUND IT. 

Matanzas, on the northern coast of Cuba, is to 
be the base of operations and supplies in the 
Cuban campaign. It is about seventy miles from 
Havana. In times of peace it is to Havana what 
Philadelphia is to Kew York. Havanese "run 
over" in the morning and back at night. Dur- 
ing the present rebellion in Cuba the railroad 
between the two cities has been probably the 
most dangerous road in the world to ride on. 
It is always either fired upon or blown up, not by 
the Spanish, but by the insurgents. On the 
evening of the first Sunday I spent in Havana 
some of the American correspondents who had 
been over to Matanzas returned weary and sad. 
The train had been fired upon and two of their 
number shot, one fatally and the other seriously. 
One was dead, the other in the hospital. 

On another occasion these same correspondents 
had been on the Matanzas-Havana Eailroad when 
the train was blown up. Then all escaped unin- 



152 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

jured. It was a relief train, containing supplies 
for the reconeentrados. Ten cars of good food 
— cornmeal and bacon — were blown to atoms. 
The insurgents had been notified by secret 
agents in Havana not to molest this train. But 
when the insurgents found that the train carried 
a guard of Spanish soldiers they tried to blow 
up the soldiers, succeeding only in destroying 
the food meant for their own starving families. 

Matanzas has a pretty little harbor into which 
runs the river leading down from the mountains 
in the rear. Its houses and shops are of the 
regulation Spanish style and build, most of them 
being painted white. It has its plaza and its 
cafes, its young men and its clubs, and it has as 
pretty girls and as many of them as any city on 
the island. 

Matanzas has more villas, or out-of-town 
houses, than any other Cuban seaport city. 
There are — or were when I was there — a number 
of wealthy residents who live across the bay from 
the city proper, and go in and out morning and 
evening. There are some beautiful country 
houses on the high ground across the bay about 
four miles from the city by the road — among 
them that of Senor Campos. Like most of the 
dwellings, this house is built with but one story, 
the floor of which is raised above the ground 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 153 

about four feet the whole resting upon a sort of 
piling and all inclosed in lattice -work for circu- 
lation of air. The result of this is that the floor 
above is kept cool. The long front porch is about 
ten feet wide, and extends the whole length of the 
house. The windows all open down to the floor, 
and the hall in the center runs from the front to 
the back, with a width of about twelve feet. On 
each side of the hall are the parlors, dining room, 
and bedchambers for the family. From the 
front porch overlooking the bay you have as fine 
a view as can be imagined. Think of swinging 
in a hammock on that porch, and taking in the 
sea breeze that comes from the bay and goes 
swirling through the long hall from the front of 
the house to the back. 

On this porch Lieutenant O'Brien, of the 
United States Navy, gave a ball, or rather, helped 
to give a ball. 

"Our mess," said he, "had letters of intro- 
duction from Havana people, and on our first 
visit to Matanzas we were received with much 
cordiality by the parties to whom the letters were 
addressed. The situation was peculiar. The 
revolution was at its height, and the Spanish 
authorities on the island kept a very sharp eye 
upon the sayings and doings of the prominent 
Cubans in the towns and cities. One of our young 



154 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

friends in the town informed ns that Senor Campos 
wanted to give us a ball, but that he was afraid to 
send the invitations to his friends in the city, who, 
on their part, would be fearful of accepting. He 
feared that such a gathering at his house might 
be construed by the authorities as a seditious 
movement, and he and his friends might go to 
jail, or receive even worse treatment. How to 
get over this snag was now the question. Our 
young Cuban friend, who had intended to per- 
sonally deliver the invitations, was afraid to be 
seen going into the houses of so many prominent 
Cubans. Something must be done which on its 
face would indicate that, while there was to be a 
big time at Campos' house, it was fun and not 
politics that was involved. The young Cuban 
visited the ship to submit the statement of the 
situation, and talk it over. Of course we wanted 
to have the ball as much as Senor Campos wanted 
to give it. After much palaver and no results, 
one of our lieutenants, who up to this time had 
not been remarkable for any particular mental 
development, made a ten-strike by observing : 

" '"Why don't some of you fellows go in uni- 
form, with the Cuban, and deliver the invita- 
tions? The Cuban can be the representative of 
Senor Campos, and the presence of his escort will 
be a safeguard as to the authorities.' It was a 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 155 

most excellent suggestion. We consulted the 
captain, who saw no objection. The question 
then arose as to who should be the escort. No 
one wanted to be the escort, and at last one of 
my enemies in the mess said : 'There is O'Brien. 
He knows just enough Spanish to be a curiosity, 
and I think he ought to go.' The whole gang 
said I was the man to go, and, rather than im- 
peril the whole plan I consented. The conspira- 
tors missed it, however, by not going themselves. 
I never had a better time in my life. The Cuban 
started off at once to get the day fixed, and the 
next morning he was on board ship again with 
word that the ball was to be that very night. It 
was rather short notice, but that's the way they 
do things down there. 

"By noon, the Cuban, whose name was Assi, 
and I had begun the rounds. We called at about 
thirty houses. We saw all the mothers, duennas, 
girls, cats and dogs in the place, and invited all 
(barring only the cats and dogs) to the ball. 
They all accepted with pleasure and many 
smiles. It was great fun making all these visits. 
The peculiar features of the case made it particu- 
larly easy to accomplish the object. The girls 
were all prepared for the visit in some mysteri- 
ous way, and were ready to say yes almost before 
the invitation was propounded. By five o'clock 



156 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

we had made tlie rounds, and were pretty well 
tired out. We went over to the Golden Lion 
Hotel, had our lunch and a wash, took a little 
nap, and at eight were on our way, in a volante, 
to the Campos residence. People were dashing 
up in carriages of all descriptions. There were 
the mothers, the duennas, and the girls again, in 
full dress, giggling and laughing as if they had 
not had such a spree for years. They were 
determined to make the most of the occasion. 

"The beaux turned out in force, and by nine 
o'clock the ball was in full blast. In order that 
there should be no cause for complaint on the 
part of the authorities, Senor Campos had invited 
the commanding general and his staff. The gen- 
eral did not appear, but his chief of staff was 
there for a short time, and then left, which was 
very considerate in him. There were two string 
orchestras, one as a relief for the other, for the 
dance never let up for a moment. The secret of 
the way in which the affair was made possible 
seemed known to all the guests, and the United 
States officers reaped the benefit. They needed 
no introduction to anybody. There was no for- 
mality. Let one of us step up to a lady, smile, 
and hold out his hand, and a smile and a courtesy 
were the response, and the lady was his for the 
next dance. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 15? 

"The refreshment rooms were two in number, 
and there was a total absence of that rush and 
crowd which we are all so familiar with on occa- 
sions of this kind. The host would quietly sug- 
gest to several of his guests that they could find 
refreshments in such a room, and those to whom 
the intimation was given would simply follow it. 
These little hints were given from time to time 
through the evening, and the result was that no 
time was the supper room crowded, though there 
were people there all the time. 

"One instrument in the orchestra took my 
eye. It was a cylindrical tin thing, made in the 
shape of a curved cornucopia, the curve being at 
the small end. It was about fifteen inches long 
and five inches in diameter at the large end. 
Upon the convex side there were some ten or 
twelve lateral corrugations of about an eighth of 
an inch in depth. The instrument is held by the 
performer in his left hand with the largo end 
under his chin, very much in the manner that a 
violinist holds his violin, and in the right hand 
is held an iron wire about ten inches long, with 
which the corrugated surface is scraped. The 
result is terrifying. 

"Of course there is but one tone produced, and 
the only effort required on the part of the per- 
former is to scrape in time with the rest of the 



158 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

orchestra. I bad never seen one of these things 
before, nor have I ever seen one since. I do not 
know the name of it, but I have the impression 
that it is one of the many mongrel instruments 
■which the plantation negroes use on the island, 
and for which there is no specific name. 

"There were, I suppose, about two hundred 
and fifty persons at the ball. All the dances 
were round dances and among them was the 
'Habanero,' but the 'Habanero' as it is danced 
by ladies and gentlemen. This is really a very 
slow waltz, and is danced in tiny steps, the 
couple who can take the smallest steps and yet 
shift their position being considered the best 
dancers. The movement is very graceful until 
you see the Habanero in a mixed assemblage or 
at a masked ball in Havana, and then it is only 
disgusting in its suggestiveness. 

"Some of the ladies sang Spanish songs, and 
some of us sang English songs. Neither under- 
stood what the other was singing about, but it 
was all in the programme, and it made no differ- 
ence. At three o'clock in the morning we 
returned to our boat, which was waiting for us 
at the beach in front of the Campos residence.' ' 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 159 



CHAPTER XX. 

HAVANA LIFE IN PUBLIC. 

I arrived here last week. The customs officials 
are the very perfection of politeness, but an 
American instinctively feels that, if he is not 
entirely hated, he is, at least, not wanted. They 
are not so polite, however, that they decline the 
customary little tip — a tip absolutely indispens- 
able if an American does not wish to have his 
trunks turned upside down on the wharf, and his 
personal effects displayed to the gaping loungers. 

After passing the customs officials the first 
natives to greet me were a crowd of boys and 
girls — most of them naked and unwashed. 
These children had two duties to perform. One 
was to ask the arriving American to buy lottery 
tickets, the other to guide the same arriving 
American to the nearest low resort. It is hardly 
necessary to add that Havana has its Tenderloin, 
and that, in Havana, the Tenderloin keeps open 
house without fear of Parkhursts or police, 
without thought of Church, State or God. 



ICO TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

A few hours after my arrival I sauntered up 
one of the cafe-lined streets with a friend. At a 
certain cafe I said, "Let's sit down/' and I sat 
down. Whereupon my friend cried in great 
alarm, "No, no; get up quickly." I sprang up, 
asking for an explanation. The explanation was, 
simply, first, the chair upon which I sat was an 
upholstered sort, with cushioned seat and pil- 
lowed back; second, in Havana there are fleas, 
very many fleas, of a large and voracious char- 
acter. 

The next morning, arising early and looking 
out of the window I saw one of the queerest 
sights that meets the Northerner's eye. In the 
street below the milkman was going his rounds. 
Instead of the milk cart and milk cans so familiar 
to Yankees, this Havana milkman drove a cow in 
front of him. In front of each door where he 
furnished milk, he drew it, in the quantities de- 
sired, from the animal herself. If certain milk- 
men in the States had to supply milk in this 
way, they would go out of business — for what 
would the milk business in our great cities 
amount to if water was made impossible. 

The most harrowing sight in the city is, of 
course, thereconcentrados — those peaceable non- 
combatants driven in from the country by 
Weyler's orders, and concentrated in the towns, 
where they are allowed to starve. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 101 

Havana has fewer reconcentrados, in compari- 
son to its population, than almost any other city 
or town in Cuba. Yet, within five minutes' 
walk of any square are sights to make one weep. 
In an immense barren house, called "Los 
Fossos," there are hourly scenes which beggar 
description. Lying on a bare floor lay two 
women, their babes clasped in their arms. One 
mother and the baby of the other died while I 
was there. The dead baby still lay on its living 
mother's breast. She was too weak to know it 
had died. And the dead mother's stiffening 
arms encircled a living child. Strong men who 
saw that scene broke down and wept. In the 
same place I have seen twelve uncoflined bodies, 
lying on the floor in different parts of the build- 
ing, surrounded by closely-packed women and 
children, scarcely less motionless than they. 

For over two hundred persons there were 
seventy-five small biscuits, and for each, once a 
day, an unsavory panful of codfish, beans, and 
oil, all cooked together. The sufferers can 
scarcely eat it. 

To the bishop's palace thousands of babes in 
their mother's arms go for succor from the 
society which the good old man has organized. 
There are over five thousand children registered, 
but only three or four hundred can be helped a 
day. It would break one's heart to see the 



162 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

throngs of sad women who turn hopelessly away 
without the bottle of thin milk and the handful 
of cornmeal which the few secure for their little 
ones. 

And such babies! Tiny skeletons, with the 
skin stretched tightly over the poor little pro- 
truding bones, or hanging in folds over them 
where the child-flesh has shrunken away. They 
seem all dead but their eyes — their big, sad, be- 
seeching eyes. There are thousands of such 
babies. In the province of Pinar del Rio alone 
there are reported six thousand orphans. 

Three days ago a sad but not an unusual thing 
occurred in the United States Consulate. A 
woman entered, asking food. She had two little 
ones at her skirts and a babe in her arms. The 
baby died while she stood there. 

In Havana it is not only that "ye have the 
poor always with you," but that ye have also 
always near you the dead. Every hour I see the 
dead being carried to the cemetery by their 
friends. A few days ago there passed by the 
tiny skeletons of two dead children. They were 
carried by their father. He bore them in a small 
codfish box, tied around with a string so that 
the little bodies should not fall out. At each 
step he had to stop for rest. This lasted all the 
way to the cemetery. And do you think that 
any one helped? Not one. Because, inasmuch 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 163 

as the friends of the dead victim have to reopen 
an old grave, nobody accompanies the bodies, so 
as not to be forced to such work. 

This reopening of graves in Cuba is the result 
of the long established custom of burying as 
many bodies in a single grave. The cemetery 
routine is like this : First, some one, usually the 
head of a family, buys a plot in the cemetery. 
He at once sets to work digging his own grave 
and the graves of all his family. He digs graves 
six feet long for the adults and four feet long 
for the children. When the entire area of the 
plot is thus in open graves, the grave-digger 
turns mason and plasterer. He cements each 
grave, bottom and sides. Thus any member of 
his family may look upon his grave any time 
during life. But the most weird part of this 
business I have yet to tell. In the middle of the 
plot a square grave is dug— a hole about six feet 
each way. This square hole is cemented like the 
graves. The bodies in the graves are covered 
with quicklime. When the Hesh has disappeared 
and only the bones are left, the bones are taken 
out of the grave and thrown in the square hole. 
Thus the graves are used over and over again 
until the square hole in the center is full of the 
bones of this or that family. Then the hole is 
sealed over and that particular family plot is 
abandoned and a new one purchased. 



164 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

RAG-TAG SOLDIERS IN HAVANA. 

The Spanish soldier in Cuba despises the 
Cuban, hates the American, and loves his coun- 
try. He despises the Cuban because he is or- 
dered thus to despise. He hates the American 
because his comrade hateth thus. He loves 
Spain because love of la patria is born in the 
bone. 

Compared to our own soldiers, either of the 
regular army or of the national guard, the gun- 
carrier of Spain now in Havana is a lugubrious 
and ludicrous object. His uniform, consisting 
of an ill-fitting blouse and trousers of blue 
striped cotton-drill, is best described as a suit 
of pajamas. Add to the blouse and trousers a 
coarse, wide-brimmed straw hat and flimsy can- 
vas shoes with hempen soles, and you have the 
full dress of a Spanish soldier. Put a rusty, 
rickety Mauser in his hands, and you have the 
same soldier on duty. He is hollow-chested, 
undersized, sunken-cheeked, unshaven, blear- 
eyed, and generally slouchy and unkempt. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 165 

In Havana he is omnipresent — ten thousand 
strong. He lolls in the cafes, drinking sugar 
and water. He hangs about doorways and iron- 
bound windows, taking to senoritas. He loafs 
on the street corners, glaring at passing Ameri- 
cans. He swaggers along Obispo Street, the 
Broadway of Havana, and he struts up and down 
the plaza as though monarch of all he surveys. 
When an officer passes he becomes as humble as 
Uriah Heep. When an American passes he 
straightens up and transforms his bearing into 
that of a latter-day Caesar. 

This pitiable man-at-arms has two virtues- 
blind obedience to order and open-eyed accept- 
ance of abuse. His creed is, Obey. His reward 
is neglect. The private soldier looks upon the 
officers of his regiment as upon so many gods. 
The officer considers the men in the ranks as so 
many dogs. Thus they get on amicably and de- 
cently. Against the continued neglect and abuse 
which is the lot of the Spanish soldier the rank 
and file of any other civilized nation would rise 
in open mutiny. Why is he fighting the 
Cubans? He does not know. Why is he risk- 
ing his life in a plague-stricken climate? He 
does not know. Why does he march and march 
and broil and suffer and starve and die in the 
torrid sun of an apparently God-forsaken island, 



166 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

far, far from his home? He does not know. 
He knows only — por la patria. 

Where does he come from? The provinces of 
Spain. "What was he before la patria sent him 
across the sea in a filthy, man-destroying trans- 
port? A peasant, healthy, and happy in the 
vineyards of his native heath. Why did he leave 
his vineyards, his home, his parents, his com- 
forts, his peace? Because the agent of the King 
of Spain came and tapped him on the shoulder, 
and said, "Follow me!" The peasant followed. 
He is taken to the nearest seaport, marched 
aboard a vessel, herded in a pen with two thou- 
sand fellow unfortunates. The vessel leaves the 
shores of Spain. He looks through a porthole, 
and has, probably, his last glimpse of the land 
that gave him first birth and then an order to 
premature death. 

The vessel rocks and rolls and pitches and the 
peasant is sick. He wallows in filth and stench. 
At last, after twelve or fourteen, and sometimes 
twenty days, the ship enters the harbor of 
Havana. The peasant steps ashore. Now, he 
thinks, life for him may brighten. Not so. In 
two hou/s the peasant becomes a soldier. He 
landed in rags and tatters, barefooted, bare- 
headed, more filthy than swine. Does he see 
Havana? Yes, for a few days. From the troop- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 167 

ship he is at once sent to Morro Castle or to 
Castillo del Principe. At these places he is fur- 
nished with a battered Mauser rifle and roughly 
instructed in its manipulation. A very few les- 
sons in the very simplest rudiments of a soldier's 
duty qualify him for active service, and he goes 
to the field without ever having fired his rifle. 
With just enough knowledge of drill to enable 
him to comprehend the orders to advance, halt, 
or turn to the right or left. 

Now comes his active service — a service por la 
patria that means starving and dying in the pes- 
tilential wilderness of Cuba. For this the poor, 
ignorant peasant lad — few of them are more than 
mere boys — is torn from his home under Spain's 
beautiful sky and wrenched from his sweetheart 
of the great lustrous eye. One thing he has — - 
company; for thousands are made to share his lot 
and his fate. Having been ordered to the front, 
the slouchy, dull-eyed, peasant-soldier, without 
having time to become acclimatized, begins his 
experience in the field. Probably it will be his 
fate to be attached to a battalion engaged in 
active operations, in which case he will march 
wearily day after day in all weathers, broiled 
during the day and chilled during the night, 
rarely seeing the enemy, unsheltered, over- 
worked, and underfed — until the inevitable 



168 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

breakdown occurs and he can march no longer. 
Then, if he still retains a remnant of strength, 
he may be detailed to the garrison of one of the 
thousands of blockhouses that are strung along 
the trocha to form the defense of country towns. 
I know of no more pitiable sight than is pre- 
sented by the living skeletons who garrison these 
little forts, when they are called upon to turn 
out and line up at the roadside at salute when 
some general and his staff ride by. I have see 
these men so weak that they could hardly bring 
their pieces to salute. The condition of the 
cavalry is considerably better than that of the 
infantry. As a scouting force it is capable of 
doing fairly good work. The horses are small 
and wiry, and require but little attention. The 
men, as a rule, ride well, but their clothing and 
equipments are in the last stages of dilapidation. 
The Spanish officer is invariably in need of a 
shave. His blouse and trousers hang upon him 
like so much thin bed-tickiDg upon a wooden 
dummy. The officer, like his men, slouches 
about with his blouse hanging open and his trou- 
sers frayed at the bottoms. The official, like the 
private, is everywhere. Only while the private 
lolls in the cafes in the side streets, the officer 
loafs in the hotels along the Prado. At Ameri- 
cans, the rank and file leer; the officers sneer. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 169 

If any one wishes to learn the depth of anti- 
Aruerican feeling at present existing in Havana, 
let him go among the soldiery — drinking sugared 
water with the private and watered wine with the 
officer. The common soldier's name for a 
Yankee is "pig. " The officer expresses his idea 
of us in the word "canaille." 

The soldiery in Havana is divided into four 
sections : the regulars, who garrison the fortifi- 
cations ; the volunteers, who assume to compare 
with our national guard ; the Guardia Civil, who 
form the suburban patrol; and the Orden 
Publico, the city police. The quality of these 
four bodies may be styled as bad, wretched, 
more wretched, and most wretched. The order 
of applying these descriptive qualities, how- 
ever, should be : police, bad ; patrol, wretched ; 
volunteers, more wretched; regulars, most 
wretched. In other words, the best of the bad 
is the Orden Publico. This body of excellent 
badness consists of picked men from the best 
home regiments in the Spanish army. While 
their duties as policemen are nominally of a civil 
character, they are to all intents and purposes a 
strictly military body, carefully drilled and cap- 
able of maneuvering with the crack troops of the 
service. They wear a uniform somewhat similar 
to the Guardia Civil, but with a jaunty Trench 



170 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

kepi instead of the felt hat. On ordinary duty 
they are equipped with a heavy revolver, worn in 
front, on the right side, and a short, straight 
two-edged sw T ord. In times of public disturb- 
ance thej" carry the regulation Remington rifle 
instead of the revolver. 

The mounted section of the Orden Publico is 
a splendid body of cavalry. The men of the 
corps are, as a rule, lean, lithe little fellows, well 
set up, of most dignified bearing, and of unfail- 
ing courtesy in their relations to the public. 
Their companion body, the Gnardia Civil, is 
rarely seen in Havana, forming, as it does, the 
rural police of the island, with guardhouses in 
all the villages and towns. They wear a showy 
and theatrical uniform of blue tunic and trousers, 
faced and striped with scarlet; a wide-brimmed 
hat of gray felt, with the brim caught up at one 
side and fastened to the crown with a circular 
badge of the Spanish crimson and gold. 

The Guardia Civil Cavalry, a numerous 
mounted body, is equipped like the infantry, ex- 
cept that they carry a saber and a carbine instead 
of the short sword and the Remington rifle. 
During the late riots in Havana excellent work 
was done by the squadrons of the Gnardia Civil 
Cavalry. The third section, which, in point of 
quality, I have named the most wretched, is the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 171 

volunteers, the famous military organization 
which is called the Pretorian Guard of Havana. 
This guard, in its day, has ruled the city and 
cast down or set up captains-general. The 
volunteers number twenty thousand men, the 
privates, for the most part, being clerks, porters, 
waiters, and salesmen. The officers are usually 
merchants, lawyers, proprietors of shops or 
establishments. The volunteers perform no mili- 
tary service beyond furnishing every morning a 
detail of about two hundred men to do guard 
duty at the palace, the bank, the city prison, the 
Castillo de la Punta, and other points. They 
have no armories such as our citizen soldiers have 
and but few opportunities for drill, hence their 
appearance on parade inspires anything but 
admiration. 

The fourth and last section of the soldiery in 
Havana is composed of the regulars — those pale- 
faced peasant-soldiers whom I have described, 
and the excellence of their badness termed "most 
wretched." 

Every ten days or so crowds of handcuffed men 
are driven through the streets of Havana, which 
they will never tread again, on their way to the 
transport ship which will convey them to penal 
settlements on the African coast. Many of these 
men represent the elite of Cuban society. 



172 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Seldom is a direct charge brought against them. 
Police spies denounce them as Cuban sympathi- 
zers. They are given no trial so they can prove 
the charges false. On administrative order they 
are sentenced to exile for life, and frequently the 
source of their misfortune can be traced to pri- 
vate revenge or personal feeling. Since the 
beginning of the war at least ten thousand 
prominent citizens have been torn from their 
native island, families and friends, and sent to 
life exile in the filthy, overcrowded, deadly 
swamps of Fernando Po. With a little money 
and good health it is possible to survive in 
Ceuta, but none ever return from Fernando Po. 
On the 23d of March a large party of citizens of 
the Matanzas district passed through Havana on 
their way to the transport. It was a sad proces- 
sion. Hopeless, jaded, despairing men, with 
arms tied behind them and feet shackled, forced to 
leave Cuba and face a slow, horrible death. On 
the train from Matanzas two of these unfortunates 
were literally shot to pieces. The guards re- 
ported they tried to escape and were shot in the 
attempt. Their fellow prisoners told a different 
story. "The two men were deliberately taken 
out on the platform between the cars and fired 
upon. , And the soldiers would give no reason." 
The action could likely be traced to personal 
revenge. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 173 



CHAPTEK XXII. 

SEEN AND HEARD IN CUBA'S CAPITAL. 

Havana is full of unseen dangers. The ques- 
tion of the minute is, "Is my friend my 
enemy?" The query is the outcome of the dis- 
covery of an elaborate spy system. In St. 
Petersburg there are not nearly so many spies as 
right here in Havana, since the ill-fated Maine 
was sunk beneath the filthy waters of the bay. 
There are spies in high life, and there are spies 
in low life. The hotel porter and the charming 
senora, who wins your trust with her smile. 
And these spies resort to any measure which will 
enable them to cast suspicion upon you, to have 
you expelled from their city. They want to get 
Americans out. We are not wanted. We are 
"pigs, canaille, hogs and Yankees." 

If an American should be unfortunate enough 
to express his opinions on the Cuban-Spanish 
question where he could be overheard Morro 
Castle becomes his abiding place for an indefinite 
period. 



174 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Of all Cuban forts Morro Castle is the most 
picturesque and the most notorious. It crowns 
a rocky point on the left of the harbor entrance. 
A hundred years ago it fairly bristled with 
heavy artillery, and was most formidable. Now, 
stripped of all but a few harmless cannon, it 
serves only as a prison, as a garrison, as a signal 
station, and as a pedestal for a lighthouse. 
Across the harbor from Morro stands the quaint 
old Castillo de la Punta, a square, bastioned stone 
fort, mounting three or four old Parrots and one 
lone Rodman fifteen-inch gun, such as we are 
removing from Port Hamilton and Fort Wads- 
worth. Orders, however, have just been received 
to mount old cannon, several dozen of which lay 
around the disarmed batteries that stretch from 
Castillo de la Punta all the way to Cavellaria 
Wharf. The so-called fortifications around 
Havana are not fortifications at all, but merely 
crumbling ruins, surmounted by guns which 
would knock the walls over by the force of their 
own concussion — if fired. 

The bay is shaped like a hand. It is pinched 
by two capes at the mouth, and then expands 
into a large basin. The tide does not ebb and 
flow sufficiently to carry away the refuse matter 
dumped into it. As a result the whole bay reeks 
with foul matter; so filthy is the water that Cap- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 175 

tain Sigsbee washed the decks of the Maine every 
morning with water brought from shore. The 
harbor bed is composed of fifty feet of sewerage, 
the accumulation of four centuries. 

No harbor laws are more strict than those of 
Havana. Small boats are not allowed to leave 
the wharf after dark — government and naval 
boats excepted. The reason for this prohibitive 
law is that there are certain rebellious persons 
in Havana at present who would be willing to 
risk going to sea in a small boat. Any risk is 
not too great to get out of a place where a pass- 
port is as difficult to obtain as here. People who 
have not visited Havana often think of the har- 
bor as a place which is calm as a lake. As a 
matter of fact, the waters are seldom quite calm. 
A stiff breeze ususually sweeps in from the ocean, 
white-capping the waves rather disagreeably for 
people in small boats. As the big ships cannot 
come to the wharf, he who wishes to go down to 
sea in a ship must first go to the ship in a small 
boat. Many tourists who are bad sailors have 
felt the begining of a prolonged siege of mal-de- 
mer while going in the small boat from Havana 
wharf to their ships. The floating dry dock, 
brought across the ocean at great expense, has 
been raised, overhauled, and put in condition. 
The Spanish war vessel Alphonso XII. was the 
first occupant of this famous dry dock. 



176 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Filibusters, mostly American, are still landing 
along the coast. They have reduced their 
methods to a point of science. Their ships hide 
among the Florida Keys till a favorable night for 
sailing. The filibusters carry no lights, and are 
ships that pass each other in the night and with- 
out speaking each other in passing. Their ships 
run boldly up to the Cuban coast. When near 
Morro Castle they hang out the lights. That 
looks honest. They send up two rockets, a sign 
that a pilot is wanted. The pilot appears, is 
sorry, but cannot take them in till morning. 
"All right" answers the apparently innocent 
merchantman, "we will lie here over night." 
The pilot sheers off and the filibuster makes all 
speed in the opposite direction down the coast. 
Not ten miles from Havana the apparently inno- 
cent merchantman runs into a cove, throws a few 
planks from the ship to the shore, unloads a 
cargo of arms and ammunition and general sup- 
plies for the insurgents. Then the ship sails 
back and at daybreak is on the exact ocean spot 
where the pilot left him the night before. He 
is taken into the harbor where he states he has 
come to ship a general cargo for the States. 

La Union Constitutional, in a recent publica- 
tion, said: "Spain gave her consent to the 
United States to investigate the causes of the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 177 

Maine explosion. She now tolerates this farcical- 
relief to the reconcentrados to be carried on. 
Spain is far too proud a nation to stoop to stop 
the growling arjd barking of a meddlesome mon- 
grel cur. The Yankee people began life as a 
nation by sheltering the criminals of all parts of 
the world; all people starve in the United States 
who have not money at their control. The Yan- 
kees have very suddenly awakened to the voice 
of humanity simply because by so doing they 
abuse and think to annoy Spain." 

The "farcical relief to the reconcentrados" has 
caused the starving people here to be much less 
in evidence. The Central Relief Committee, 
headed by Dr. Luis Klopsch, has certainly ac- 
complished miracles. Dr. Klopsch perceived 
that to save the reconcentrados not one town nor 
yet five, but the whole of Cuba, must be fed at 
the same time — and at once. He quickly made 
the plans which he has executed. Three special 
trains started in three different directions 
bearing cornmeal, bacon, salt and medicines to 
all provinces of Cuba. Dr. Klopsch has estab- 
lished the most gigantic system of organized 
charity that has ever been attempted. 

The soldiery secretly wish that the reconcen- 
trados receive no aid, no relief. They argue that 
a reconcentrado, being a non-combatant, cannot 



178 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

be killed in open battle. Therefore let him 
starve to death. Every reconcentrado the less is 
a Cuban the less. 

Havana, at any moment, may become as Paris 
during the Reign of Terror. Only in Havana 
carnage and death will stalk among all classes, 
and especially strike at Americans. The Volun- 
teers grow more and more threatening and seem 
less under control with every day that passes. 
The Volunteers, the famous military organization 
which may be called the Pretorian Guard of 
Havana, at one time ruled the city, casting down 
or setting up captains-general. They number 
twenty thousand men, supply themselves with 
necessary equipments, and ask for no pay. They 
have no armories, such as our militia have. 
They perform no military service beyond furnish- 
ing two hundred men every morning to do guard 
duty at the Palace, the bank, the city prison and 
the Castillo de la Punta. Owing to lack of op- 
portunities for drill they inspire anything but 
admiration when on parade. These men despise 
the Cubans. They hate Americans — as I have 
every reason to believe. Net long ago I met one 
of these Volunteers on a side street. He pushed 
against me, shoving me into the gutter. Had 
this occurred when I first arrived in Havana 
there would have been trouble immediately. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 179 

But I had already learned to suppress and re- 
serve my indignation. So I turned to the would- 
be mischief-maker and offered an offhand apol- 
ogy, as though I were the person to blame. But 
trouble he wanted and trouble he tried hard to 
have. He made a feint as though to strike me, 
he leered at me, but he failed to rouse any sign 
of temper. Finally he tapped his machete and 
pointed to Cabanas Fortress, significantly. The 
incident showed me the true feeling of these 
Volunteers toward the "Americano." 

Even though misery is so widespread in Cuba 
the Royal Lottery sells two hundred thousand 
dollars' worth of lottery tickets every month. 
The tickets are sold everywhere, either whole 
tickets or by tenths. One-tenth of a ticket costs 
one dollar and calls for one-tenth of the amount of 
the premium — if you should win, which is not 
likely, as you have but one chance in twenty 
thousand. I have seen girls come out of the cigar 
factories and deliberately spend several days' 
wage for a fraction of a ticket. If you go for a 
walk it is safe to estimate that in half an hour's 
time no less than twenty tickets will be offered 
to you. The very beggars frequently save their 
pennies until they have enough to invest in a 
lottery ticket. 

Speaking of beggars, they are everywhere. 



180 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

They beg in one portion of the city, and sell the 
products of their beggary in another portion. 
The reconcentrados seldom ask for aid. They 
will frequently follow and hold out a trembling 
hand for alms, but seldom do you hear the whin- 
ing cry, ''Charity, kind sir, in the Virgin's 
name, charity, for a poor, dying cripple," that 
you hear so constantly from the professional 
beggar, with which Havana abounds. 

Previous to the war the volante was seldom 
seen in Havana. Now there are more volantes 
than any other vehicle, barring the little victoria. 
These two are almost the only means of traveling 
around the city. The social leader, Countess 
Mount Talon, has a private volante with three 
horses and an outrider. Many wealthy persons, 
both Spanish and Cuban, have followed her lead, 
and are using the old-time Cuban conveyance. 
Then again, there are many brought into the city 
by country people, who came in to get out of 
the way of hostilities. 

Every evening the military bands play in the 
Plaza, and hither flock the people who are not at 
the opera or private social affairs. Here is seen 
the Cuban mantilla girl with her duenna, in 
friendly converse with her enemy, the Spanish 
officer. . Here all thoughts of war are forgotten, 
or at least it so appears. In front of the Hotel 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 181 

Inglaterra, where Consul-General Lee is living, 
and where almost all Americans stop, is a favor- 
ite spot for music, romance and dancing. But 
during the day this plaza is filled with soldiery, 
and presents a very different scene from that of 
the evening. 

There are two principal differences between 
Cuban domestic life in war time and domestic life 
in time of peace : The women who formerly wore 
brilliant colors now wear mourning; where men 
were in the majority, there are now twenty 
women to one man. Otherwise, domestic life 
here is the same as before the war. 

In her black gown the senora sits all day long 
in her rocking-chair, rocking forth and back, 
aud opening and closing her fan. The senoritas 
do the same. The father, if he is young, is prob- 
ably in the field. If not, he may generally be 
found in the courtyard, pruning his lemon trees, 
or walking idly about, poking inquisitively in 
every corner. The grandfather, in his own 
rocking-chair in the courtyard, is consuming 
surprising quantities of "dulce" — Cuban sweet- 
meats. 

The women who are not pretty sometimes walk 
out in the daytime. The women not homely 
never go out of doors excepting after dark. The 
beautiful woman of Havana has learned that the 



182 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

sun is not good for the complexion, and that a 
bad complexion means the end of beauty. 

Once a week every Cuban family cleans house. 
Not the servants, but the senoras and senoritas 
themselves do the cleaning, and this even in the 
best and richest of families. If the Cuban is a 
business man he invariably lives in rooms over 
his shop or office. If he keeps his own volante, 
the volante stands in the courtyard, and the 
horse is stabled under the dining room. 

The houses are all alike, the grandest and the 
poorest. Stone floors, half doors between the 
rooms — that is, glass doors reaching halfway to 
the ceiling — for ventilation, of course. One 
room, generally arranged for a sitting room, 
opens directly off the street. In all rooms are 
colossal mahogany wardrobes. The ceilings are 
never less than twenty feet high, canopied, cur- 
tained beds, to keep out mosquitoes, which bite 
all the year round. In the kitchens of the better 
classes are tiled walls and stone floors. They are 
scrupulously clean and neat, but one catches 
the inevitable odor of garlic. 

A casual observer would say that there was 
very little difference between the gowns and cos- 
tumes of the Havana ladies and those seen in the 
large cities of the United States and Europe, ex- 
cept that they have not the good taste shown by 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 183 

the American and English women. They adopt 
the prevailing fashions to the extent of their 
purses. One does not see seal coats or other 
furs, even in the winter months, when the tem- 
perature is between seventy and eighty degrees, 
although I saw a fur cape for sale in one of the 
shops. Most of the women you see on the streets 
hood their faces with black mantillas, and use 
fans to screen their eyes from the sun. A fan is 
a telegraphic instrument, capable of transmitting 
the most complicated and the most complete 
messages. Often you see two women dressed 
exactly alike. This is so frequent as to be 
noticeable to strangers. On Sunday afternoon I 
noticed in front of a fashionable residence five 
women, probably members of the same family, 
all gowned precisely alike in a heliotrope- 
colored fabric. The thought occurred to me 
that the head of the family was pleased with the 
goods and purchased the whole piece. 

The Cuban's welcome is frank and sincere; if 
you are not of the race of their rulers, especially 
if you are an American the mask of caution is 
soon dropped, and "hermano"(brother) is substi- 
tuted for the formal "senor. " And you feel that 
you are indeed treated as a brother; and the 
gayety and gravity, the lightheartedness and 
the pathos, curiously interblended in your host, 
make him a most interesting study. 



184 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

The Cuban is given to poetry and song. Many 
among the most illiterate are poets and musicians. 
In the better educated classes the senoritas and 
their beaus will recite poetry by the hour, pieces 
from their favorite poets adapted to the occasion. 
The arch glances of the flirts add a seductive 
charm to these harmonious lines — innocent flirta- 
tions these, which go no further than an ex- 
change of incendiary glances and exaggerated, 
rhymed compliments. 

The stranger is apt to misconstrue manners 
and customs which are at variance with these of 
his own country. For instance, a susceptible 
young Cuban sees a lady pass by ; he is struck 
with her beauty, and expresses his admiration 
by kissing his hand to her. He had never seen 
her before, and will perhaps never see her again ; 
he has not fallen in love at first sight; he merely 
pays homage to her charms. She receives and is 
flattered by the attention, rather than offended. 

Past middle age the Cuban woman has a ten- 
dency to obesity. This is due, probably, to her 
inactive life. 

The Cubans marry for love. The home life is 
simple and patriarchal. The respect shown to 
their elders by the young, their tender care of 
the grandparents, is touching. It is in the 
family circle that the character of the citizen is 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 185 

formed. Admitted into that circle the stranger 
is struck with the simplicity and the native good 
breeding in all classes. There is a genuine cor- 
diality which makes you feel at ease, and, if there 
be no danger of surveillance by the ubiquitous 
spy, an abandon which soon lets him into the 
secrets of the host's opinions. They are all of 
the same mind, more or less pronounced — Cuba 
must be free. The women are intensely patri- 
otic ; their influences have been felt in every 
known revolt against the Spanish government. 



186 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

SUNDAY IN HATANA. 

On week days Havana is war-mad. On Sun- 
days the city is pleasure-mad. The command- 
ment, as translated by the hotheaded people of 
this feverish city, is: "Six days shalt thou fight 
and do all thy killing ; but the seventh day is 
the day of pleasure; in it thou shalt have no 
-war." 

Havana's Sunday is a day of cock-fights, bull- 
fights, concerts, promenades and masquerade 
balls. In these pleasures, Spaniards and 
Cubans, enemies all, consort together as com- 
rades without arms. At seven o'clock on Sunday 
morning the Spaniard shares the coffee with the 
Cuban, and fails to give the passing Americano 
the customary week-day glare. At the same 
hour the Americano takes his coffee alone, and 
wonders what will happen next in this Vesuvius- 
like city. 

From coffee hour at seven until breakfast at 
eleven everybody attends— church? No! The 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 18? 

people go shopping, for all the stores are open. 
The Spanish soldiers buy American trinkets at 
the American shops to send to sweethearts in 
Spain. The American buys articles for the folks 
at home, in shops where the clerks speak not one 
word of English. He pays seven dollars for a 
small fan, or four dollars for a canary bird, or 
eight dollars for a pair of castanets, or fifteen 
dollars for a mantilla. These prices are created 
exclusively for Americans. For the same arti- 
cles a native would pay only half the price. But 
in Havana, as in all countries save the United 
States, the American is made of money, and is 
entirely bereft of reason in spending it. The 
Cuban, during the shopping hours, loiters in and 
out of the shops, but buys nothing; for only one 
Cuban in a thousand has money to spare, and he 
is an exception if he has money enough to buy 
necessities. 

Meanwhile the reconcentrados flood the streets 
and beg. Thousands of outstretched arms line 
the sidewalks, or rather the gutters. Those beg- 
ging alms are, in most cases, nothing but bone 
and skin. Starvation is the common lot. Some 
are so nearly dead that all the food in Christen- 
dom could not save their lives. Others need 
medicine more than food. All are utterly miser- 
able. Not one has a gleam of hope. Not one 



188 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

knows even partial happiness, except as a some- 
thing remembered. To a stranger in Havana, on 
Sunday, amid all the madness of pleasure, the 
fact that there is a reign of misery is more ap- 
parent than ever. On that day, and, for that 
matter, on all days, the misery is ignored by the 
average Spaniard. The Cubans would help if 
they had not already done all and given all in 
their power. The Americans give, and give 
promptly and liberallj'. But the Spaniards con- 
tinues to ignore. But soon the American per- 
ceives the utter hopelessness of such charity, and 
sends what he can afford to the relief fund, 
where he knows it will be wisely distributed. 
In Havana alone there are twenty five thousand 
reconcentrados. Of these, one-half are not only 
hungry, but starving. The other half are re- 
lieved and cared for by the fund. 

On Sunday the negro has his great hour. It 
is shopping hour just described. But the Cuban 
negro does not shop. Having bought his mite 
of codfish, cornmeal and coffee, and his bad 
cigar in the early morning, he spends the balance 
of the time before breakfast in alleys and side 
streets, at cock-fights and street dancing. A 
"boss" negro owns the cocks. A courtyard is 
chosen as a ring. The spectators, all negroes, 
pay one centano (twenty cents) each to see the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 189 

cocks kill each other. That twenty cents repre- 
sents a negro's wage, if he is fortunate enough 
to have work, for a whole day. It is evident 
that the Cuban negro is a confirmed lover of the 
cock-fight. 

After breakfast come the bull-fights, Spain's 
national sport. Killing a bull is to a Spaniard 
what batting a baseball is to an American. The 
American present at a baseball game is an excited 
person at best. The Spaniard present at a bull 
fight is more than excited, more than enthusias- 
tic — he is bloodthirsty. The place set apart for 
the bull-fight very much resembles the polo 
grounds in New York. Only instead of a square 
center there is a ring, as at a circus. All Havana 
is there, the Spaniard, the Cuban, the Creole, the 
negro, the American visitor — men, women and 
children. The pleasures of the hour are opened 
with a speech. The officers of the army and navy 
sit in a box of state, and act the part of compla- 
cent and conquering heroes. For Cubans are 
there. They have no money for trinkets and no 
pennies for the starving reconcentrados, but 
they manage to raise three dollars in Spanish 
silver to see the four bulls butchered. 

The fight begins. Ah, almost instantly the 
American cries: "But this is not a fight; it is 
only a slaughter." No matter. The Spaniard 



190 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

thinks differently. He cries: "Bravo! bring in 
another bull." Finally, after twelve or fourteen 
horses have been gored to death by the four 
bulls, and after the four bulls have been tortured 
till they are so weak they can hardly stand, the 
great hero, the matador, steps in and kills the 
bulls, one after another, by plunging his sword 
through their bodies. 

At the last bull-fight here the matador was 
Spain's greatest. His name was Mazzintini. If 
the butchers in the slaughter business at Chicago, 
where they slay an average of one bull per min- 
ute, could see this famous Mazzintini kill his 
bull, they would hiss him. This same idol of 
the people, Mazzintini returned to Spain after 
that so-called bull-fight. He took with him in 
his leather belt, twenty-five thousand dollars. 
And yet nowhere on the face of God's earth can 
so much misery, ruin, poverty, and starvation be 
seen as in Havana at the very time its citizens 
are paying from three dollars to twelve dollars 
each for seats at a Sunday bull-fight. 

As soon as the fight is over there is a rush for 
the ferry. Back to the city swarm the pleasure- 
lovers, mad with the sight of the slaughtered 
horses and bulls, wildly merry over an entertain- 
ment that would simply disgust the average 
American. Though the streets they pour, scores 



TRIUMTH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 191 

in cabs, hundreds afoot, toward the Prado, the 
plaza and the park. In carnival mood they pass 
ho^use after house in front of which hang yellow 
flags marked with black Y'sin their centers. In 
each of the houses there are one or more cases of 
smallpox or yellow fever. 

"What cares the pleasure-mad populace '? There 
are plenty of coffins. The coffin maker is the 
only man who is hard at work in all Havana on 
Sunday. He works in his own doorway. A 
number of coffins, all made that day, are piled 
up on one side of the doorstep. Still this car- 
penter works on, nailing thin pine boards into 
shapes to fit the human form. For by Monday 
morning he knows that all the coffins he has 
made on Sunday will be lowered into the ground, 
each with its destined occupant. 

The passing crowds grin at him. Ha! ha! 
poor carpenter! He must drive nails on Sunday 
instead of seeing Mazzintini kill the bull! Poor 
man! They sincerely pity him. 
s Now the crowds after swarming into the 
plaza, the Prado and the park, gather round the 
tables on the sidewalk in front of the cafes. 
Spanish private soldiers drink sugar and water. 
The officers drink anisette. Americans call for 
lemonade and ice cream. The Cubans look on, 
or are treated by their friends, the enemy, alias 



192 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE 

the Spanish. All smoke big cigars of various 
qualities, though the majority of them are good. 
Seven cents buys an Havana perfecto which in 
New York would cost a quarter. 

At 7 p. m. dinner— that is, the Spanish 
officers dine, the Americans gorge, the Cubans 
have a meal, the Spanish soldiers eat. At the 
same time the reconcentrados file past the feast- 
ers and starve. And away in the outskirts of the 
city you may run across a camp of insurgents 
roasting a whole pig for their evening meal, as 
on the scene of which I send you a photograph 
with this letter. It being Sunday evening, the 
insurgents feel that there is a truce of a few 
hours, in which they, too, may "eat, drink and 

be merry." 

In the evening Havana gathers in the theatres, 
the music halls, at the opera and at the clubs. 
One of the finest club houses in the whole world 
is only a few blocks from where two thousand 
women and children lie huddled together, too 
weak to stand, literally dying* of hunger. 

The theatre, the opera and the clubs are at- 
tended by those whom the bull-fight has not 
bankrupted. For the poor and penniless there 
is music by the military band in the plaza. As 
the women of Cuba seldom attend the theatre, 
they may be seen now, Sunday evening, prome- 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 193 

nading in the plaza. See a senorita, and just as 
surely will you see a senora. See the young 
lady alone? No! Her duenna's eyes are upon 
you* And such eyes! If the Cuban women had 
nothing but eyes, there would be no race on 
earth who would compare with them for beauty. 

After the theater and the concert everybody 
goos home — at least, so it appears to the stranger. 
At eleven o'clock the city seems wrapped in ner- 
vous, fitful slumber. The veteran visitor knows 
better. Half of Havana, maybe, is sleeping. 
The other half may be found at the masquerade 
balls. Otherwise, who were the hundreds of 
masqueraders who have been riding and running 
about the streets ever since sundown? Go back 
to the theaters. The seats on the parquet floors 
have been covered with boards as if by magic. 
Over the seats there is nov? a dancing floor. The 
auditoriums have been transformed into ball- 
rooms. 

At twelve the balls begin. The floors, the 
boxes, the galleries are crowded. By whom? 
The best men and the worst women of Havana. 
No respectable woman is there. All the women 
are in costume and masked. Not one man is in 
evening dress. The music begins, Cuban music 
of a strange, weird sort, half African. Two 
bands, one on each side of the theater, play 



194 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

alternately. Some of the musicians are Cubans, 
others are negroes. They make a very big noise, 
and the music and the dancing do not cease for 
an instant, from 12 midnight till 4:30 Mon- 
day morning. The dancing — well, it is too 
shameful to describe. 

Compared with a masquerade ball in Havana, 
the French Ball in New York is tame and puri- 
tanical. 

In Havana Monday is an off day Everybody 
seems peevish, tired and thoroughly out of 
humor. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 195 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE BELLES OF HAVANA. 

In Havana, counting out the soldiers, there 
are twenty women where there is one man. The 
missing nineteen men are either in the bushes 
with the insurgents, in the hospitals or in graves. 
La senoritas and la senoras sit all the long day in 
big rocking chairs and rock and rock. They are 
sad-eyed and composed. Their grief is too deep 
for tears. All wear the dress of mourning. 

War with the United States? Of what inter- 
est is that to the women of Havana? None. 
War has already taken away father, husband, 
lover and brother. Who has she left to fight the 
United States. Speak to her of a possible war 
and she displays not the slightest interest. For 
her such a war would have no terrors. How can 
she lose more or suffer more since she has already 
lost all, suffered all ? 

In the evening the military band plays in the 
plaza. The senoritas leave their rocking chairs, 
don the mantilla and go to hear the music. 



196 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

Alone? Never! By the* senorita's side is la 
sefiora or the inevitable duenna. They prome- 
nade; they smile through their sadness, for grief 
is intermittent Like war, it has its periods of 
truce. In the plaza, side by side, walk the 
sefioritas and the soldiers, the Cuban woman and 
the Spanish man of arms. Here is a picture as 
novel as it is terrible, a picture of mirth amid 
tragedy, for here are Spanish soldiers in white 
walking by the side of the Cuban women in 
black, the very soldiers perhaps who have shot 
the husbands, the sweethearts, fathers or 
brothers of the women beside them. Here is a 
truce indeed. Here is peace between the men 
who kill and the women who suffer because of the 

killing. 

But the men of Cuba are scarce, and the Cuban 
women are numerous. Surely a woman must 
talk to some one beside a woman. So she goes 
to the plaza in the evening to talk to the enemy 
of her island and her independence. 

Is the senorita of Havana beautiful? As a New 
Yorker would say, "Are there any pretty girls 
about?" Alas, there are many beautiful eyes 
and few pretty girls! If it were only a question 
of eyes, there would be no race on earth so uni- 
versally beautiful as the women of Cuba. Even 
if her features are perfect the senorita spoils the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 197 

effect with a coating of powder. She carries the 
powder with her wherever she goes. It covers 
the face like a mask. The effect is ghastly. 
When her face is not powdered, it is greasy. 
This greasy look is due to perspiration, unavoid- 
able in so warm a climate. 

In the tobacco factories every girl has her box 
of powder and the necessary handkerchief to 
apply it. I was in one of the rooms of the fac- 
tory of La Corona, where two hundred cigarette 
girls sat at work. The clock showed a quarter 
to ten. At ten the girls would go to breakfast. 
But in the intervening fifteen minutes they all 
had something to do — they must needs put on 
the ghastly mask of powder. Even little girls 
not more than eight years old whitened their 
faces. 

With all classes it is the same — too much pow- 
der. With all ages it is the same — too much 
powder. 

The monthly soirees given by the Club 
National are the swell society events of Havana's 
winter season. The club membership comprises 
both Cubans and Spaniards. At these balls, 
therefore, you can again see enemies at war con- 
sorting as friends. But for the sprinkling of 
uniforms an American present at a soiree of the 
Club National would suppose the island of Cuba 



198 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

was in a state of the most serene peace. La 
senorita is there, of course. And these are not 
the senoritas of the tobacco factory nor yet the 
senoritas of the plaza promenade. They are the 
belles and the buds of Havana's four hundred. 
They are, as a rule, undersized and overpow- 
dered, the men the same, for in Havana even 
the men powder their faces. At the last soiree 
of this club I made careful observations. There 
was not a man present whose height would meas- 
ure over five feet eight inches. 

As this was the most high-toned social affair 
of the season, any American, having been in- 
vited, would naturally go dressed as for a ball in 
New York. He enters the ballroom. He is the 
only man in the room in evening dress. The 
men wear their clothes of the day, and not a 
single senorita wears a low-cut gown. In the 
room there are not half a dozen bare arms and 
no bare shoulders at all. 

Most of the women— there are probably two 
hundred dancing — wear a domino and mask. 
The dominos are home-made affairs consisting 
only of a hood and cape. After studying these 
two hundred senoritas of the best Havana stock 
for two or three hours the American carries away 
with him such impressions as these : 

The senorita of Havana has very broad hips, 
too broad. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 199 

She is usually too stout for her height. "When 
she is tall, she is very thin. 

Her mouth is large and voluptuous, and on her 
lips there is plenty of rouge. 

Her teeth are large and white and gleaming, 
but they are usually far apart, and not more than 
one sefiorita in ten can be said to have a "per- 
fect row of pearls." 

The senorita's cheeks are seldom plump* seldom 
have much natural color. The skin tint is olive, 
but more often sallow. 

Her hair and her eyes are her glory. Her hair 
quivers like a mane and indicates the passion 
that comes of Spanish blood. She rolls her 
eyes; she talks with her eyes; she flirts, cajoles 
and captures you with her eyes; she holds you 
with her eyes. 

She cannot converse for more than a few min- 
utes on any subject. You must be satisfied with 
two glorious eyes. 

After an American man has spent a single even- 
ing with the sefiorita of Havana he yearns for a 
glimpse of the New York girl. 



200 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Havana's last cigar. 

For nearly two years Cuba has not raised 
enough tobacco to supply the island. Tobacco 
plantations, like the sugar fields, lie in ruins 
For want of tobacco the cigar factories of Havana 
are nearly all idle. Factories which formerly 
employed five hundred men now employ only 
fifty. Where two hundred Cuban girls used to 
make a living at rolling cigars, only twenty are 
now at work. The industry is at the point of 
death. 

Who is responsible? First, Weyler; second; 
the Cubans. The captain-general said: "Thou 
shalt not make cigars. " The insurgents replied : 
"Then we will destroy the crops." From the 
palace in 1896 came the famous decree forbiddiug 
the exportation of Havana leaf tobacco. In the 
field followed the burning of the crops and 
stored tobacco by the Cubans. A petition has 
recently been sent to Captain-General Blanco, 
asking him to revoke the decree of his prede- 
cessor. His answer was an emphatic "No!" 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 201 

What actuated Weyler to forbid the exporta- 
tion of Havana tobacco? First, the captain-gen- 
eral, always ready to adopt stringent measures, 
believed in good faith that manufacturers and 
dealers in the United States would buy up all the 
tobacco in Cuba, and consequently oblige all the 
factories in Havana to close. In this his belief 
proved well founded. American tobacco dealers 
hastened to buy up all the tobacco they could get 
before the decree took effect. And, of course, 
all the factories in Havana put up their shutters. 
Second, Weyler knew that the Cuban cigar- 
makers in Tampa and Key West each gave one 
dollar a week from their wages for the cause of 
Cuba Libre. To prohibit the export of tobacco, 
therefore, would throw these Tampa and Key 
West cigarmakers out of employment and de- 
prive the insurgents of that important source of 
revenue. Consequently, in the Florida cigar 
towns there were soon hundreds of idle, half- 
starving Cubans. Third, Weyler was a gold 
grabber. He loved to make money. He made 
it. He was a millionaire when he left Cuba. I 
am told that this famous tobacco decree netted 
him a fortune. 

Many so-called American tobacco firms ex- 
ported several thousand bales of tobacco in spite 
of General Weyler's prohibitive decree, under 



202 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

the pretense that it was the outcome of diplo- 
matic transactions between Washington and 
Madrid. But the real secret in the affair was 
that Weyler, by charging commission on every 
bale exported, graciously gave permission for 
shipments to be made. Thus Weyler made 
money as he waged war. 

The province or country of Vuelta Abajo is, or 
rather was, Cuba's principal tobacco center. It 
might have been called Cuba's Klondike. But to- 
day every tobacco plantation in Yuelto Abajo is in 
ruins, abandoned. The direct cause of this whole- 
sale destruction was "Weyler's tobacco decree. All 
the farmers, farm hands, dealers, and persons 
directly or indirectly engaged in raising or deal- 
ing in tobacco, had hitherto been sacred to the 
insurgents; all tobacco property was respected, 
in direct contrast to sugar plantations. No 
so9ner was Weyler's decree known in Vuelta 
Abajo than the rebels changed their tactics. The 
sacred plant was attacked with fury. Over four 
hundred thousand bales of tobacco (approximat- 
ing forty million pounds) were destroyed in 
1896 and 1897 in Vuelta Abajo, and the war on 
the weed continues to the present day. 

In 1897 very little tobacco was gathered, repre- 
senting not one-tenth of the normal crop. Even 
this small percentage was grown in the yards of 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 203 

houses in well fortified villages, and in the 
much-talked-about Zonas de Cultivo, which were 
designed by General Weyler for the planting of 
vegetables for the unfortunate reconcentrados. 

It will take at least twenty years before Vuelta 
Abajo can again be in as flourishing condition as 
in January, 189G. Not even if the war should 
come to an end could it regain its former wealth 
in a shorter period. Whole villages and towns 
have been destroyed; and eighty per cent, of the 
population has perished. Even genuine auton- 
omy would not much benefit the tobacco trade of 
Cuba, since Spain is under so many obligations 
to the Compania Generale Tadacos, a monopoly 
in that country, from which the government de- 
rives an enormous revenue. Absolute independ- 
ence alone can help matters. 

The condition of things in the cigar factories 
of Havana could not be more hopeless. Here is 
a statement made by the head of the leading 
cigar factory, one year ago: "In the department 
devo!ed to the preparation of raw tobacco we em- 
ploy five hundred men and two hundred women. 
Average daily production, fifty thousand pounds. 
In the cigar making department we employ two 
hundred men and one hundred women. Average 
daily output one million cigars." Now compare 
these figures with others which I have just ob- 



204 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

tained by a visit to that same factory. In the 
raw tobacco department, thirty men, ten women. 
Average daily output twenty-five hundred pounds 
of tobacco. In the cigar-making rooms, twenty 
men, five women. Average daily output less 
than seventy -five thousand cigars. From one 
million cigars a day to seventy-five thousand a 
day in a single factory! How long before the 
smokers of the United States will seek in vain 
for real Havana cigars? All the best Havana, 
cigars are exported. Havana, itself, must be 
contented with a second-rate smoke at a first-rate 
price. Half the cigar stands, formerly flourish- 
ing, are now boarded up. Half of the cigar 
stands still doing business are stocked very 
meagerly, with a genuine lot of poor cigars. 
Moreover, a leading New York cigar manufac- 
turer, now in Havana, tells me that half the 
cigars sold here, and in the States as "clear 
Havanas" are made of Virginia tobacco. The 
raw material is sent direct from "Virginia to Porto 
Eico. At Porto Rico it is repacked and shipped 
to Havana as native Porto Eico tobacco. In 
Havana native Porto Rico tobacco from Virginia 
is made into cigars and sent back to the States as 
"clear Havanas." 

The natives here are unanimous in their opin- 
ion that the Cuban cigar industry is doomed. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 205 

Their opinion is founded on the facts just given. 
It looks entirely probable that in a few months 
this city will have on exhibition, draped in 
mourning, a curiosity, labeled "Havana's Last 
Cigar." 






206 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 

SOCIETY IN HAVANA. 

Above all things, the Cuban is sociable. He 
has never put a latchstring outside his door, 
because the door is always open. Friend or 
stranger, you are always welcome. Anything 
that is his is yours. The Spaniard, in the be- 
ginning, perceived the Cuban's generosity, and 
took advantage of it. The very hospitality of 
the natives has been their ruin. 

There is a social set in Havana that might be 
called society, written with a capital S. But 
it is not Cuban society. A few Cubans of 
the best families move in this set; but they must 
be on their guard and hold their peace — for this 
society is made up principally of Spaniards. 
The Cuban at the opera, at receptions, and at 
balls, must speak to his enemy, but he must not 
talk. The native senora or senorita must dance 
with a man who, next day, may be ordered to the 
front to fight or kill her brother, sweetheart, or 
father. 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 207 

Entering a ballroom in Havana, even a 
stranger can at once pick out the Cubans from 
among the Spaniards. The Cuban, whether man 
or woman, has a certain air of proud humility 
that tells of the oppressed. The Spaniard, on 
the other hand, carries himself with the unmis- 
takable and insolent air of a conqueror, if not an 
oppressor. 

The bare fact is that Cuban society has gone 
to pieces. With the men in the field, in hospi- 
tals, in the grave, or in exile, Cuban families are 
represented almost entirely by women. "With so 
many vacant places at the hearth, Cuban homes 
are broken. With the breaking-up of homes has 
come the disintegration of Cuban society. That 
once proud and aristocratic society is threatened 
with extinction. 

The most-laughed-at-man in Havana to-day is 
the military governor, General Arolas. At the 
same time, the most talked-of woman is an 
English girl, Miss Elsie Tobin. The governor 
has lived through sixty-nine winters. Miss 
Tobin has seen only nineteen summers. Decem- 
ber is about to marry April. Nearly every day 
these two ride along the Prado on horseback; 
the general in uniform, the English lass wearing 
a military jacket, part of the uniform of a Span- 
ish colonel. As they pass the cafes, the govern- 



208 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

or's legion of soldiers titter and wink, and say 
to one another: "Old Spain aspires to the hand 
of young Britannica. " 

Since the central relief committee, headed by 
Dr. Louis Klopsch, has been here, the reconcen- 
trados are not so much in evidence. But there are 
still thousands of them to be seen. If you walk 
in the gutter at night, you stumble over these 
unfortunates. The gutter is their favorite sleep- 
ing place. They huddle in heaps in doorways, 
and fill all the free benches in the Prado. 

The widest sidewalk in Havana measures not 
more than two feet. The usual width is one 
foot, just wide enough for on»e person at a time. 
Take a walk with your friends, and you go 
Indian file. If a friend wishes to walk by your 
side, he must take to the gutter. On Sundays 
the streets are full of people hurrying to the 
bull-fight. Gamecocks can be seen fighting in 
half the courtyards of the negro section of 
the town. The amphitheater where the bull- 
fight takes place is on the opposite side of 
the harbor. The ferryboat is similar to those 
around New York, but mucn smaller. The bull- 
fight is a purely Spanish sport. Cubans want to 
abolish it from the island. Disgusting sight! 
As I saw it recently, it was not a bull-fight, but 
a bull-butchering! 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 209 



CHAPTEE XXVII. 

CONCLUSION. 

And now, how did the Americans find Cuba 
after the war? How have the Americans found 
that island? No doubt, Havana is Cuba, just as 
Paris is France. A glimpse of Havana, then, as 
the invading army of peace found it, will give a 
comprehensive idea of how that peace army found 
all Cuba. I can best relate the story in the fol- 
lowing extract from a letter dated Havana, 
August 1, 1898 : 

Another army is about to invade Cuba. An 
army armed with merchandise in place of guns. 
Instead of digging trenches it will build factories 
and open stores. Battles will not be fought with 
bullets, but with brains and brawn. This 
American army of peace will be comprised of 
men who work with money, with their hands or 
with their heads. Any soldier embarking 
without enough money to live on for half a year 
had better turn back. To go to Cuba, penni- 
less, just now, is like seeking death. You can't 



210 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

get sustenance out of an orange that has been 
squeezed by a mailed hand. It takes time to re- 
construct that which war has destroyed. Mean- 
while, the point of attack will not be Santiago. 
The base of supplies will be Cuba's metropolis, 
Havana. "What kind of a place will the invading 
American find this Havana to be? 

The steamer drops anchor in the harbor half a 
mile from shore. Small boats swarm around. 
In one of these boats the American is rowed 
ashore. The water of Havana harbor is never 
peaceful and always rough. The spray wets the 
American's baggage his clothes, his face. That 
settles the small boat. He will have a tender 
meet all incoming steamers; the tender will be, 
at least, a small steamboat or a huge tug. Then 
he will dredge the harbor and build a dock, at 
which ocean steamers can land. The boatman 
speaks only Spanish. The American speaks 
only English, and has no time to study lingo. 
Therefore Havana must learn to use the tongue 
of Americans. That Spanish rule is no more, 
that the yellow flag of the dons is down, is not 
enough. The language, too, must go. As the 
boat leaps over the waves through the spray, the 
American espies, on shore, a huge, circular 
building. Instinctively he know 7 s that that is 
the arena where matadores have been in the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 211 

habit of slaying bulls on Sunday afternoons. 
And forthwith that arena is doomed. Even the 
Cubans shall not be permitted to conduct a 
slaughter-house for the public amusement of the 
thug. With the arrival of the Yankee a thou- 
sand and one customs of life and trade in Ha- 
vana will become incongrnous, un-American, 
therefore will be subjected to a healthful injec- 
tion of Americanism. 

The American steps ashore and into a votura, 
a small victoria, pulled by an asthmatic horse. 
The streets of any city are full of humiliations 
for the proud; but, on the way to his hotel, this 
proud American finds Havana's streets full of 
sights that more than humiliate. They are sights 
that inspire indignation against the inhumanity 
that caused them. These narrow streets are full 
of abject misery. The American's carriage brushes 
against indescribable poverty. He has been ac- 
customed, at home, to streets filled with the 
evidence of wealth. So this new thing, this 
awfulness of suffering, appals him. Whole 
families are huddled together on the pavements. 
Their home is a gutter. Little naked children 
hold out skeleton hands for a centavo. Human 
beings, reconcentrados, wrecks; that is the 
history of these families. Americans will find 
all Cuba strew r n with these wrecks. For months 



212 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

to come they will block the channels of trade, 
just as marine wrecks obstruct navigation. 

The votura turns into another street and the 
American beholds a man milking a cow in front 
of a doorway. This is the typical milkman of 
Havana. He takes his cow from door to door, 
giving to each housewife the exact quantity of 
milk desired. The days of this milkman's pros- 
perity are numbered. In a few weeks milk 
wagons, gorgeous in coats of paint of many 
colors, will be rushing through the streets. The 
American milkman will have supplanted the 
Cuban and his cow. 

The carriage rolls on, or rather, rocks and 
pitches on, like a ship in a storm. For the 
street, like the sea, has billows and troughs. But 
the American, remembering how his own streets 
are not paved, feels at home. The street is not 
wide enough for carriages to pass each other. 
The sidewalk is so narrow that even lovers must 
walk in Indian iile. The American is only 
ninety miles from the United States shore. Yet 
here are streets more foreign in appearance than 
those he once traveled three thousand miles to 
see in Europe. To enjoy these Havana streets 
a man must have an eye for the picturesque and 
the leisure to lounge. The American simply 
notices that the houses are only two stories high, 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 213 

looks reproachful, and deplores the waste of sky- 
space. 

If he has been in Havana before, the Yankee 
remarks the absence of Spanish soldiers in the 
street. The sword has gone, but the mantilla is 
left. All the mantillas are black. Almost every 
woman in the street wears mourning:. For war 
is a robber of husbands, and sons and brothers. 
These women are sad-eyed and composed. Their 
grief is too deep for tears. 

During this ride the American sees a great 
man}* negroes. He does not know it but of every 
three people in Cuba one is a negro. These 
negroes are growling. Their growl is sinister. 
"We did the fighting," says their growl, "and 
now we want some of the rewards, some repre- 
sentation in the independent government gained 
by our fighting." 

Suddenly the American realizes that with all 
the rockin and pitching of the carriage, but little 
headway is made. And he stares at the wheezy 
horse as if it were a species of snail. 

Eventually he arrives at the hotel, and is 
shown to a room with a stone floor, a high ceil- 
ing, and a dearth of water and towels. He rings. 
He rings again. In fifteen minutes, more or 
less, a boy appears. Water and towels, please. 
Fifteen minutes later the boy comes with water, 



214 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

and twenty minutes after the water comes the 
towels; the American having broken the bell, 
meanwhile, with his frantic ringing. The Yan- 
kee's troubles have begun. He is in the land of 
manana, of to-morrow, of any time excepting 
now. No injection of Yankeeism will ever cure 
the Cuban of his indifference to the clock. 

The invading American discovers almost 
instantly that all Cubans view him with suspi- 
cion, because years of oppression have taught 
them to suspect everybody. He finds that any 
Cuban tradesman can tell more lies in a single 
interview than any one American. 

First manana, then a lie. After procrastina- 
tion, prevarication. In these respects the Cuban 
and the Spaniard are alike. The American finds 
that, though the Spanish are no longer in poli- 
tics, Spaniards still remain in the social and 
mercantile life of the city. And there will be 
some difficulty in distinguishing a Cuban from 
a Spaniard. 

Now the Yankee looks for lodgings. He finds 
he can get a fair apartment for ten dollars 
monthly, and the best for twenty. Coffee is 
thrown in. Every morning at six o'clock he is 
awakened by a man standing over him with a 
huge cup of coffee, made as only a Cuban can 
make it. That is all the Yankee gets in the way 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 215 

of food till breakfast at eleven. He begins the 
day's work with a clear head. If he sleeps after 
six he loses the loveliest part of the day. 

Soon the American will learn in Havana to 
keep Havanese hours. That is, his working day 
is from seven to eleven, and from one to five. 

Our cousin will invade a Cuban home. He 
finds the women sitting all day in rocking-chairs, 
stroking the feathers of a pawqueet, smoking a 
cigarette or doing nothing. They walk with 
awkward gait, for they walk not enough, and wear 
shoes that are too short. Senoras and seno- 
ritas coat their faces with powder, as with 
a ghastly mask. They know more about com- 
plexion powders than about baking powders 
At social gatherings the Yankee will find that 
la senoritas lace so tightly that many of them, 
after dancing La Cubana, fall in a dead 
faint. In La Cubana, the national dance, the 
dancer turns round and round on a single spot a 
more lively step being precluded by the climate. 
This dance is seldom graceful, and sometimes 
indecent. The Yankee will find that Cuban girls 
at fourteen have finished their education. They 
can read, write, embroider and play on a very 
bad piano— for there are no good pianos in Cuba 
This same Cuban girl, however, speaks two lan- 
guages, of which American girls know oniy the 



216 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE 

dialect. These are the language of the fan and 
that of the eye. She has been obliged to cul- 
tivate these languages because her duenna has 
forbidden the proper use of her tongue. The 
American will look the Cuban woman over and 
then write home: "There are no pretty Cub°.n 
girls. They are either very beautiful or very 
homely. If beauty consisted only of e3^es and 
hair the women of no nation would be so uni* 
versally beautiful as these sefioras and senoritas, 
Those past twenty are either fat and gross, or 
lean and gawky. They wear fireflies for jewelry. 
Under a gauzy dress a hundred fireflies, like our 
lightning-bugs, makes a girl look as though her 
form were studded with diamonds,'' 

After the invading American has been in 
Havana one week, he will write ■ 

"In the homes, all cooks and servants are men 
Wages, five dollars monthly. Kitchen refuse is 
thrown into the streets, where it is consumed by 
those black and dreadful scavengers called buz- 
zards If you don't want home cooking, you 
pay seven dollars monthly, and have the can- 
ternos, or canteen boy, serve you daily with two 
square meals — breakfast at eleven, dinner at 
seven. The canternos carry meals to hundreds 
of families. Food is thus sent out from a cen- 
tral kitchen, Instead of delivering a loaf the 



TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 21? 

bakery delivers a whole meal. Everj r well-regu- 
lated house has a porter, called portero. When 
the master goes out he tells the portero which of 
the ladies are to be permitted to leave the he use 
during his absence. You call a servant by clap- 
ping your hands. This comes of having all doors 
and windows always wide open. Havana needs 
to be cleansed, disinfected, sewered and paved. 
Meanwhile, the man who comes down here with 
hats, shoes, clothing, machinery, staple articles 
of food and general merchandise for sale stands 
the best chance of making money. Clerks are 
getting eight dollars a month. We cannot em- 
ploy Cubans. They are as untrustworthy and 
unreliable as ever. They want to sleep away 
the afternoon. Their fondness for pink sweet- 
meats is disgusting. They are always embracing 
each other like women and Spaniards. A hair- 
cut costs fifty cents. Fresh water, two cents a 
gallon. Theatres charge forty cents for each 
act. 

Cubans who have pleaded poverty during the 
war are digging up their strong boxes. When a 
Cuban gives alms to a beggar he raises his hat, 
for he gives to God. A funeral is an affair as 
gorgeous as an American circus. The pall-bearer3 
wear costumes that might have been hired from 
a comic opera company, and the hearse is decked 



218 TRIUMPH OF YANKEE DOODLE. 

out like a van chartered by a picnic-party. I 
think that by the time an American army of 
invasion has been in Havana a fortnight we will 
begin to mind our own business and allow Cuba 
to remain Cuba. 



THE END, 



A Journey to Venus. 

By G. W. POPE. 

Paper, 25c 

Neely's Popular Library with full page illustrations* 

Lovers of Jules Verne will gladly welcome 
this remarkable volume. Many have declared 
that Dr. Pope has even outdone the French 
master at his own art. At any rate the narrative 
is written with an air of candor that almost com- 
pels a blind belief in its truth, although the ad- 
ventures which befall the daring travelers to the 
glorious planet are staggering in the extreme. 
Books of this character, while written with a 
considerable latitude, contain many features of 
deepest interest, showing how far science has 
gone in its eager quest for the truth in relation 
with our neighboring planets, we may never 
know the truth with regard to Mars and Venus 
and Jupiter, but that is no reason we may not 
speculate and endeaver to lift the veil that hangs 
over those bright worlds that glow and sparkle 
in the heavens. "A Journey to Venus" is an 
extraordinary volume in many ways, and will 
well repay a careful perusal. 



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riONTRESOR, 

An English-American Love-Stoiy. 

By " LOOTA." 
Neely's Prismatic Library. 

Gilt top, 50c. 

In "Montresor" we have a readable little 
volume, airily written, and dealing with the fan- 
cies of the heart. Our author introduces us to 
charming society, and we follow the fortunes of 
the heroine with more than passing interest. 
" Montresor" is hardly in the line of sensational 
novels, but one finds running through the story 
a most delightful vein of love, and the conclusion 
reached is so pleasant that we close the book 
with the sensation of having been very pleasant- 
ly entertained. The author's views upon divorce 
are in line with the ideas of those who have most 
seriously pondered upon this grave question. 
"Montresor" is a book that can be safely placed 
in the hands of the most exacting, which is more 
than can be said of most new novels. 



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Latest Novels of 

ST. GEORGE RATHBORNE, 

Author of « DOCTOR JACK." 

In "A Bar Sinister," St. George Rathborne has hinged the leading dramatic 
features of his romance upon a remarkable decision of a New York judge, 
whereby a man was declared to have committed bigamy with one -wife, and which 
strange charge was borne out by the laws of the State. The scene of action is 
transferred from beautiful Naples, under the shadow of Vesuvius, to the wonder- 
land of Peru, where, amid the towering Andes, the various interesting characters 
work out their destiny. 

" Masked in Mystery, A Romantic Story of Adventure under Egyptian 
Skies," is another of those readable, up-to-date romances of foreign travel and 
strange intrigues, from the pen of St. George Rathborne, who has given the 
reading public many bright tales of American pluck and heroism the world over, 
among which we recall his "Doctor Jack" and a volume recently issued called 
" Her Rescue from the Turks." 

" Her Rescue from the Turks," by St. George Rathborne, is the very latest 
romance of foreign adventure, written by the well-known author of " Doctor 
Jack." The field chosen could hardly have been more timely, since the eyes o* 
the whole civilized world are at present turned toward the Orient, and armed 
Europe might be compared to an arch of which Turkey is the keystone. This 
story is rapid in action, with a vein of comedy illuminating the whole. 

Uniform editions, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50c. 
SQUIRE JOHN. 
A SON OF MARS. 
A BAR SINISTER. 
A GODDESS OF AFRICA. 
MASKED IN MYSTERY. 
HER RESCUE FROM THE TURKS. 



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IN THE QUARTER. 

By ROBERT W. CHAHBERS, 

Author of "The King in Yellow." 



Neely's Prismatic Library. 

50 cents. 

A new novel by the author of that wonderful book, " The King in Yellow," 
is an event of considerable importance to the reading public ; nor will a perusal 
of " In the Quarter " disappoint those critics who have predicted such a glorious 
future for Robert W. Chambers. As the title would indicate, the story deals with 
life in the Quartier Latin, in Paris, where the merry art students live and move 
and have their being, and over which the halo of romance ever hangs ; a pecul- 
iar people with whom we have spent many an entrancing hour in company with 
such volumes as " Trilby " and "A King in Yellow." 

PRESS NOTICES: 

Book Buyer, New York :— " It is a story of a man who tried to reconcile 
irreconcilable facts. . . Mr. Chambers tells it with a happy choice of words, 
thus putting ' to proof the art alien to the artists.' . . It is not a book for the 
unsophisticated, yet its morality is high and unmistakable." 

Brooklyn Citizen :— " Full of romantic incidents." 

Boston Courier:— "Interesting novel of French life." 

Boston Traveler :— " A story of student life written with dash and surety 
of handling." 

Boston Times :— "Well written, bright, vivid ; the ending is highly dra- 
matic." 

New York Sunday World :— " Charming story of Bohemian life, with its 
bouyancy, its romance, and its wild joy of youth . . vividly depicted in this 
graceful tale by one who, like Daudet, knows his Paris. Some pages are exquis- 
itely beautiful." 

Philadelphia Bulletin :— " Idyllic— charming. Mr. Chambers' story is 
delicately told." 

I New York Evening Telegram :—" It is a good story in its way. It is 
»ood in several ways. There are glimpses of the model and of the gnsette— all 
dainty enough. The most of it might have come from so severe a moralist as 
George Eliot or even Bayard Taylor." 

New York Commercial Advertiser :— " A very vivid and touchingly told 
story. The tale is interesting because it reflects with fidelity the life led by cer- 
tain sets of art students. A genuine romance, charmingly told." 

Congregationalism Boston :—" Vivid, realistic. There is much of no. 
bility in it. A decided and excellent moral influence. It is charmingly written 
from cover to cover." 



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The Passing of Alix. 

By MRS, MARJORIE PAUL. 

Neely's Popular Library — Paper, 25 c; 

Newspaper comment may in some minds 
count for little in settling the value of a novel, 
but it at least shows the drift of public opinion. 
Nothing but praise has been spoken of "The 
Passing of Alix." To show the general trend of 
this commendation we beg leave to publish a 
single literary notice from a prominent journal : 

" A capital little book, that of Mrs. Mai jorie Paul, just the light, 
breezy sort one delights in reading when swinging idly in a 
zephyr-tossed hammock in the early fall days, or before the crack- 
ling wood fire of the winter hearth of a country house. Doubtless 
many a copy will find its way into the satchel or handbag of 
tourist and commercial traveler, to whom the weighty novel, writ- 
ten with the evident intention of reforming this wicked and 
ignorant world, seldom appeals." 

" It is a story of a sensational character, but clean in thought 
and pathetic in its conclusion. It is the story of a woman, and a 
good one. It contains nothing that is sensational, but is full of 
human interest, and holds the attention of the reader from start 
to finish. Besides telling the story, it teaches a lesson, but does 
not sermonize. It is a book, in fact, which will interest all, and 
furnishes the very best sort of light reading." 



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Two Famous Authors. 

To lovers of military tales and stories of romantic adventure 
the world over the names of 

CAPT. CHAS. KING, U.S.A. 

AND 

ST. GEORGE RATHORNE, 

Author of " Dr. Jack," 

have indeed become household words. Their widely circulated 
novels may be found wherever the English language is spoken, 
and have served to while away the tedium of many a long rail- 
way journey or ocean voyage. The public seem to eagerly wel- 
come each new story from these travelers who have searched the 
strangest corners of the earth for new scenes and remarkable ex- 
ploits with which to entertain their legion of readers. Mr. F. 
Tennyson Neely has pleasure in announcing that the very latest 
and best productions of these wizard pens are now appearing in 
his attractive list of publications, and may be found en every 
book-stall here and abroad. 

THE LATEST BOOKS by Capt. King. 

W1RRI0R GAP. Cloth, $1.25. 
FURT FRAYNE. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50c. 
AN ARMY WIFE. Fully Illustrated. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50c 
A GARRISON TANGLE. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50c. 
TRUMPETER FRED. Illustrated. Gilt top, 50c. 

NOBLE BLOOD AND A WEST POINT PARALLEL. By Capt. King and 
Ernst Von Wildenbruch of the German Army. Gilt top, 50c. 



THE MOST RECENT NOVELS by St. George Rathborne. 

Author of" Doctor Jack." 
Uniform Editions, Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50c. 
SQUIRE JOHN. 
A SON OF MARS. 
A BAR SINISTER. 
A GODDESS OF AFRICA. 

MASKED IN MYSTERY. , 

HER RESCUE FROM TEE TURKS. 

Others in preparation for early issue. 



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A Fascinating: Sinner. 

By "DELTA." 

Neely's Popular Library— Paper, 25c. 

This is certainly one of the brightest and 
krost sparkling travesties ever written upon 
modern " society " in England. There is not a 
dull line in it, and the author has handled the 
various characters with rare skill, giving us such 
strong delineations that we have no difficulty in 
recognizing counterfeit resemblances of people 
to be met with in other walks of life besides the 
"four hundred." It is the story of a luxurious 
and high-spirited young woman, who, married to 
an English nobleman, gives the worthy man 
serious cause for anxiety. Her luxurious tastes, 
her greedy desire to make the most of life, and 
the colloquial animation of the narrative give an 
agreeable raciness to this bright and cheery book 
that is full of constant sparkle and brightness. 
It will not require more than ordinary penetra- 
tion to discover that the author paints her char- 
acters and introduces colloquial arguments with 
a distinct and commendable purpose in view. 
The moral of the book is so manifest that it can 
hardly fail of its purpose with the general reader. 
It is evidently no amateur hand that guides these 
various characters to their destiny, but one long 
practiced in the art of catering to the great pub- 
lic of omnivorous readers. 



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PAOLA CORLETII, 

THE FAIR ITALIAN. 

By ALICE HOWARD HILTON, 

Author of "A Blonde Creole." 
Neely's Popular Library, paper 25c. 

This is a charming romance of life in Italy 
and New Orleans — of a pretty Italian maid, 
daughter of a Neapolitan nobleman, who elopes 
with the lover of her choice, a poor musician, 
and being hounded by the emissaries of a disap- 
pointed suitor, in conjunction with her angry 
father^ they start for America, settling in the 
famous French Quarter of New Orleans. 

The story is sweet and pure, and full of ex- 
ceeding pathos — the descriptive bits of old New 
Orleans, with its Jackson Square and St. Louis 
Cathedral, opposite, sire clever pictures of the 
Creole City of the past. Since Cable has ceased 
his admirable novels of these interesting people, 
the public will undoubtedly welcome an addition 
to Creole literature from the pen of one so 
thoroughly conversant with the subject as Mrs* 
Hilton. 



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Thomas B. Connery's Novels. 

From many flattering press notices those 
given below will indicate the favor with which 
Mr. Connery's writings are received by the 
public : 

11 All the Dog's Fault is a capital book to pass away an hour 
or two, full of incident, love, and humor. The author has long 
been known as a substantial figure in New York banking circles, 
and occupied a prominent position in politics during the Garfield* 
Arthur dynasty, his name being mixed with the Conkling im- 
broglio at the time the Empire State senators withdrew so dra» 
matically from the United States Senate. Mr. Connery has given 
us a delightful romance, which will be read with pleasure by all 
those who desire to be entertained without the necessity of hav- 
ing some musty logic generated for the reformation of the world 
thrust down their unwilling throats. He writes to amuse, and 
certainly fulfils his mission to the Queen's taste." 

11 Black Friday : A Story of Love and Speculation, by 
Thos. B. Connery. When a man as prominent as Thos. B. Con- 
nery has shown himself in the financial world takes up the pen to 
write a romance of love and speculation under such a significant 
title as ■ Black Friday,' we have a right to expect something out 
of the beaten track. Nor does the book bring disappointment 
It is fresh and vigorous. The financier wields a trenchant pen. 
His pictures are excellent, and the love passages worthy of com- 
mendation. Some men excel in one field, but Mr. Connery bids 
fair to make a name for himself in literature as well as among 
the bulls and bears of Wall Street." 

44 That Noble Mexican, Mr. Connery's latest book, even 
excels the preceding volumes in interest and must add to hi* 
already enviable reputation." 



Neely's Popular Library. 

ALL THE DOG'S FAULT. Paper, 25 oents. 

BLACK FRIDAY. Paper, 25 oents. 

THAT NOBLE MEXICAN. Paper, 25 cents. 



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RACHEL DENE. 

By ROBERT BUCHANAN, 

. . . Author of . . . 

••The Charlatan," "The Shadow of the Sword," " Clod and the Man.* 

Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 25c. 

Harrisburs Telegram " ' Racbjl Dene ' is one of Robert Buchanan's best works." 
Cincinnati Tribune " This is a good story." . ,..._* 

Bocky Mountain flews " ' Rachel Dene,' by Robert Buchanan is one of his best 

stories " 
Becord I'nion " Mr. Buchanan has not presented a stronger story. He pre- 
faces it with the story of his life in literature, and gives the writers and am- 
bitious youths some excellent advice." 
Comnie rcial "An excellent story, full of strong points, botn constructively and 
Bulb tin from a literary standpoint. It is practical. It deals with the dark 

and bright sides of life, but always to show the advantage of the bright side. 
Nashwlle Christian " The book is clean and wholesome -enough of complex- 
Advocate ity in the plot to furnish the reader with occasional sur- 
prises." 
Fulleiton News " A very fascinating tale." . 
Western Christian "Fascinating, stimulating— a novel of love, murder, jeal- 
Advocate ousy, false imprisonment, escape, and vindication." 
Bosto • Ideas "Its elements are excellently characteristic— very likely due to 

its being an accurate picture for which commendation is due." 
The American " Is fully equal, if not superior, to his former novels." 



The Gates of Dawn, 

By FERGUS HUME, 

Author of "Mystery of a Eansorn Cab," "Miss Mepbistopheles," etc, et«. 
Cloth, $1.25; paper, 25c. 

Otis Library "A remarkably versatile and ingenious romance, replete with vivid 

Bulletin descriptions and stirring incidents." 

Sashville Banner " A well-arranged plot, and the interest of the story is well- 

cii cf"3. 1 IIP CI 

Mr. Hume has built around a group of interesting characters a story of the 
old ordar of plot and counterplot, where there is mystery surrounding the hero- 
ine's birth— a wealthy man, in disguise, meets and loves her— a wicked female vil- 
lain brings danger to the course of their true love -a good friend aids them in their 
hour of need, and all ends well. The people who make up this story are " A doc- 
tor addicted to opium, a pair of gypsies, a recluse lady, a lovely huntress, and a 
sportino- parson," besides the hero, a lord of high degree, Pete, a fox terrier, and 
Simon °a horse. There is a mysterious hatching of plots amor^ the gypsies, and 
much prophesying. The parson is a " simple, kindly old fellow, given to strong 
ale terriers, and bluster." There is a great house with a witch, who holds nightly 
orgies in the empty rooms at midnight, from which come cries of tortured women 
and dvint- men, while by day this witch "tires her head, decks herself with gems, 
clothes herself in rich garments," and makes a mystery of herself generally. It »? 
by far Fergus Hume's best book. 



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The Strolling Piper 
of Brittany, 

BY 

John W. Harding:, 

AUTHOR OF «A BACHELOR OF PARIS." 

Cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 

Mr. Harding writes with a masterly pen, and the 
pictures he gives us of lowly life in Brittany, among the 
humble peasants, are the faithful delineations of a born 
artist. It is a rare pleasure to spend some hours in hie 
company and look upon these scenes through his magic 
glass. Besides, the story has a deep sympathetic strain 
that revives memories of his earlier work, of v/hich one 
critic wrote : 

"'A Bachelor of Paris,' by J. W. Harding, is one of 
the latest numbers in Neely's attractive Prismatic Library, 
and bids fair to win fresh laurels for that charming collec* 
tion of tales. George du Maurier has given us glimpse? 
of student life, and created so intense a desire on the 
part of the reading public to learn more of artist life in 
Paris, that other writers have hastened to take advantage 
of this demand. 'A Bachelor of Paris ' calls for nothing 
but praise, and the eye is charmed by the attractive cove? 
of the work, as well as the mind satisfied with the we. 1 ! 
told tale within." 



A BACHELOR OF PARIS, fully illustrated; giit top, 50c 



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Through Field and Fallow. 

A Choice Collection of Original Poems. 

By JEAN HOOPER PAGE. 

CLOTH, GILT TOP, $1.00. 

IT IS NOT always the brilliant work which appeals 
to us most keenly. Sarcasm and rhetoric have their 
place, but the book that lies on the desk and is 
found in the mending-basket is the book, nine times out 
of ten, that deals with every-day life and sweeps across 
the strings of the heart. While Mrs. Page's work* 
" Through Field and Fallow," often touches the subtle 
minor chords, it invariably swells to the triumphant 
major and rings clear and true in the sweetness of undy- 
ing hope and unquenchable faith. 

Much of Mrs. Page's work has appeared first in our 
great daily newspapers, but its life has been less ephem- 
eral than theirs. Here and there a woman has treasured 
some bit in her scrap book ; a man has clipped a verse 
and put it away in the drawer of his desk marked 
"private." Sooner or later in this little volume the 
reader will find the poem that was written for him. 
! Father Ryan once wrote : "To uplift the downcast, 
■to sweeten any life, to feel that we in some way have 
helped to lighten the great burden that rests upon 
'mankind — this is the only real compensation that comes 
to the poet." This recompense will be Mrs. Page's. 



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NIL. 

A NOVEL. 

BY FREDERICK A. RANDLE. 

TEELY'S CONTINENTAL LIBRARY. Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 50 cents. 

Competent critics have pronounced this book the most elabor. 
fcte and interesting work of the author. Mr. Randle comes hon- 
estly by his literary ability, his mother being a Powers, and 
closely connected with that family so famous for its sculptors and 
artists. His present work, Az7, abounds in quick action, and may 
be classified with that delightful and humorous line of fiction so 
eagerly sought by the lover of travel and adventure. 

Nesta Storovski, a young Polish lady and belle of Kazan, 
Russia, Vala, a noble Aleut maiden of the Island of Unalaska, 
Laila, a beautiful Ayan girl whose home is on picturesque Upper 
Yukon, Jmla Van Xen, an Imperial Guard of the Winter Palace, 
St. Petersburg, are characters in the story commanding highest 
admiration ; so also Michael O'Finerty, a verdant son of Erin, 
and Jacob Schmidt, an unsophisticated young man from Holland, 
both so unaffected in their ways that they fairly dispel serious- 
ness, take a leading part in the thrilling scenes that mark the pro. 
gress of the romance. 

The renowned city of Amsterdam on the Zuyder-Zee, Utrecht, a 
city of the Netherlands where lived the old Dutch aristocracy, Lake 
Wener ana the River Klar, Sweden, the Aleutian Islands, and 
Alaska are places of importance in the story, made fascinatingly 
interesting by a wizard pen. 

One feature of this novel may cause reviewers to classify it an 
extravaganza, since to an excessive degree the author amusingly 
portrays the ofKciousness of the police world to arrest people on 
the merest resemblance to fugitives; ridiculous blunders of mis- 
taken identity filling the history of such official activity. In this 
portrayal, Nil is almost as " far fetched" as " A Comedy o£ Er- 
rors " and as amusing as " The Merry Wives of Windsor.*' 

The story in a unique manner concludes at Nokomis, Illinois, 
a little city noted for romance and chivalry. 

For sale everywhere, or rv&t post-paid on receipt of price. 

F. TENNYSON K2ELY, Publisher, 

i 

96 Queen Street, Lon£o&t ;i4 Fifth Avenue. New York? 



Two Strange Adventures* 

By KINAHAN CORNWALLIS. 

Neely's Popular Library. 

Paper, 25c. 

This book is well calculated to please readers of adventuu 
since there is not a dry chapter from cover to cover. In mam 
ways it is impossible enough for Jules Verne, and yet through 
the whole runs a delicate yet charming thread of love seldom to 
be found in the works of tha* French master of adventurous 
fiction. Those who pick up the volume will hardly be satisfied 
until they reach the end. Mr. Cornwallis has written many 
charming stories in verse, the most popular being his " Conquest 
of Mexico and Peru" and the patriotic " Song of America and 
Coiumbus," which latter fitly graced the period of our World's 
Fair. " Two Strange Adventures" met with such a hearty wel- 
come that the first edition was immediately exhausted. 




By MISS MUHLBACH. 

Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. 
Cloth, gilt top, 50c. 

This is one of the most charming tales from the pen of the 
celebrated German novelist. It gives many side lights to the 
story of Napoleon in the height of his power, and would prove 
interesting even to those who have never admired the genius of 
the great Bonaparte. The translation by Miss Safford leaves 
nothing to be desired, since it could not be improved. Fur years 
she has stood in the leading rank of translators, with a charm of 
expression wholly her own. ' « A Conspiracy of the Carbonari ' 
has proven very popular in this neat form so well adapted to the 
pocket and satchel, and eagerly sought after by the traveling 
public. 



For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price, 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 
96 Queen Street, London. B14 Fifth Avenue, New York, 



Remarks by Bill Nye. 




THE 

FUNNIEST 

OF 

BOOKS. 

"It will cure the bluas 
quicker than the doctor and 
at half the price."— New 
York Herald. 

Over 500 Pages. 
Fully Illustrated. 

Cloth, $1.50 ; Paper, 50c, 



LAUGH AND GROW FAT. 

A collection of the best writings of this great author, most 
profusely illustrated, with over 500 pages. It is the funniest of 
books. Bill Nye needs no introduction. The mention of th« 
book is enough. 

11 1 have passed through an earthquake and an Indian out, 
creak, but I would rather ride an earthquake without saddle or 
bridle, than to bestride a successful broncho eruption."— i?/// Nye. 
\ ''Age brings caution and a lot of shop-worn experience, 
purchased at the highest market price. Time brings vain re* 
grets and wisdom teeth that can be left in a glass of water over 
Eight"— Bill Nye. 

SPARKS FROM THE PEN OF BILL NYE. 192 PAGES. PAPER, 25o, 
WIT AND HUMOR. BY NYE AND RILEY. PAPER, 25o. 



For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 
p6 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York* 



Novels of Willis SteelL 

In A Mountain of Gold the reader is led through 
many strange adventures, while a vein of love arouses 
the interest of the fair sex. Mr. Steell has shown more 
than ordinary power in describing Western scenes. For 
many years to come the region from the Rockies to the 
Pacific must be the home of romance. The century be- 
fore us is destined to be marked by stupendous discover- 
ies in the treasures of the earth, and stories of mining 
must always commend themselves to the eager public. 

Isidra, The Patriot Daughter of Mexico. 
The land of the Montezumas has always been invested 
vith a halo of romance ever since the days when the 
Spanish invader, Cortez, swept over the country with 
his conquering army of treasure seekers. This interest, 
instead of waning as the years pass by, rather increases. 
New knowledge of Mexico but whets our eagerness to 
learn more of her strange people, their methods of living, 
and the vast treasures that lie sealed under her mountain 
ledges. " Isidra " is written by one who is thoroughly 
at home in his subject. It is a charming tale of love 
and adventure under the Mexican flag, and one cannot 
read the romance without learning many interesting 
things in connection with our neighbors over the border. 



JSIDRA. Paper, 50 cents. 

A MOUNTAIN OF GOLD. Paper, 25 cents. 



For sale everywhere, or sert post-paid on receipt of price* 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 
96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, 



r 

A-/ 



ATE WORKS OF 



OPIE READ, 

Author of f 

44 A Kentucky Colonel" i 

Probably no American writer of to-day excels Opie 
Read in the delineation of strange characters. He loves 
to dwell upon Southern scenes, before and after the war, 
and so vividly are these quaint pictures drawn that the 
reader seems to see the characters of his story as plainly 
as though the skill of an artist had painted their por- 
traits. « Odd Folks " will please all travelers who enjoy 
a good story, well told, and should meet with as heavy* 
sale as "The Captain's Romance" has enjoyed. It & 
peculiarly fresh and sparkling, and a sure cure for lone- 
liness or the blues. The remarkably clever pen-drawn 
characters wiil live through many editions as true types 
of American life. 



ODD FOLKS. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 25c. j 

THE CAPTAIN'S ROMANCE. Cloth, £1.00; paper, 25a 



For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 
96 Queen Street, London. „ 4 Fifth Avenue, New Yorfc* 



AT HARKET VALUE. 

By GRANT ALLEN, 

Author of "The Woman Who Did," "The Duchess of Powyaland," "ThU 
Mortal Coil," "Blood Royal," etc. 

Cloth, $1.25; paper, 25c. 

Harrisburg Telegram " Interesting and well told." 

Indianapolis " The story is an entertaining one. An American gentleman 

Sent in (I plays an important part, and gives the author occasion to pay us 

a compliment by saying that ' Where women are concerned there is no person! 
so delicately chivalrous than your American gentlemen.' " 

Post liiif-iisrcn.-er " The mere announcement of a story from Grant Allen's 
pen is sufficient for those who enjovthe work of a masterhand." 

New Yors independent "A right charming style of story-telling, and every- 
thing he writes enforces attention." 

■Chicago 'Jail " Excellently planned, and entertainingly carried out " 

Boston Id- as " The depth and sincerity of its suggestiveness forms a valuable 
novel. Its manner is very frank and clear." 

Commercial Appeal " Mr. Allen's English is vigorous, and his characters are 
very strongly drawn in the main. \Ye find a charm in the book we did not 
expect to find." 

Daily U< gister " Mr. Allen has constructed a remarkably clever story. Its 
characters are interesting, and there is action throughout to keep up the in- 
terest." 

Penny Press " The book contains both bits of modern philosopny and lov© 
episodes of decidedly romantic nature." 

In Strange Company. 

By GUY BOOTH BY, 

Author of "On the Wallaby. ' ' Six Full Page Illustrations by Stanley L.Wood. 

Cloth, $1.25; paper, 25c. 

Cincinnati Tribune "It is a novel with a purpose— that is, to entertain and 

interest, and it certainly succeeds." 
The World " A capital novel of its kind— the sensational adventurous. It has 
the quality of life and stir, and will carry the reader with curiosity unabated 
to the end." 
The Pull Mall " The best of them is ' In Strange Company.' . . . The book 
Budget is a good tale of adventure ; it has plenty of astonishing inci- 

dents which yet have an air of versimilitude." 
The Yorkshire " One of the most successful novels of its order we have recently 
Post seen. Its general resemblance is to what may be called the 

buried treasure class. . . . The story hangs well together ; its villains are 
picturesque and almost engaging people; its dialogue singularly free from 
the melodramatic element." 
The Glasgow " Mr. Boothby gives the reader no chance of skipping. ' In Strange 
Herald Company' is full of strange adventures to the end. ... A 

thoroughly exciting story told with considerable ability." 
The Morning ■ " Will prove far more interesting to him who is past his first 
Post youth than the majority of tales of adventure. Its incidents are 

as exciting as is the rule in books of this kind, but they remain fairly within 
the bounds of the possible, and there is a picturesque vigor in the author's 
description of Chili and the southern seas." 



For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 
96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



NEELY'S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY 




THE TRIUMPH 
OF YANKEE DOODLE 




F. TENNYSON NEELY 

PUBLISHER 
114 Fifth Avenue 06 Queen Street 



New York 



London 




1\RCHtL Cunn, 1* 



... I "rf 



DEC 121899 




/ran. 

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merit^.£M«^There are ovef 16,000 McPhail 
Pianos in the homes of the best musical people 
in Boston and vicinity, the musical center of 
this country, and the McPhail is endorsed b y 
such eminent musicians a,s£><£i£i£i£& J*&£ 

CARL TZERRAHN CARLYLE PETERSILEA 

T. ADAMOWSKI JOHN K. PAINE 

XOUISC. ELSON FELIX WINTERNITZ 

We believe we make the best piano that money 
and experience can put together, and that we 
offer in the McPhail Piano, an instrument sec- 
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it can be returned to us without a dollar of expense 
to you^«^Send for catalogue and printed matter, 

A. n. ricPHAIL PIANO CO. 

786 WASHINGTON ST. 
BOSTON, MASS. 



LfcAg'12 



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